This week the Royal Society for Public Health is selling the broader public well being workforce which is ‘any individual who is not a specialist or practitioner in public health but has the opportunity or ability to positively impact health and wellbeing through their work’. Between 15-20 million individuals in over 170 occupations are estimated to work on this group. Here, Public Health Liverpool Consultant Eustace De Sousa, outlines the significance of their work, which works on largely unseen.

For giant elements of my 35 yr profession, I’ve labored in roles not beforehand recognised as being a part of the broader public well being workforce. In these roles I, and others like me, had been very a lot contributing to public well being – which is outlined as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health and wellbeing, through the organised efforts of society’.

So in the course of the first a part of my profession in youth rights and advocacy, in organising council neighbourhood centres in disadvantaged areas, in managing grownup and kids’s social care, and in delivering holistic housing programmes, my groups and I had been having a direct impression on not simply safeguarding particular person adults, youngsters and households, however contributing positively to raised well being and wellbeing for communities which is on the coronary heart of public well being.

More lately in my profession, in regional roles within the North West for the NHS, and within the nationwide group at Public Health England, I used to be indebted to the experience and work of this wider workforce. The planners, engineers and emergency providers for our work on street security; the educationalists and college assist employees, social staff and youth teams advising us on younger individuals’s well being and wellbeing; the older individuals’s teams and providers steering our coverage and prioritisation work on wholesome ageing; I might go on however you will note how in nearly every little thing we do in native authorities, we’re shaping public well being.

Returning to native authorities right here in Liverpool, I’ve discovered an progressive and vibrant wider public well being workforce within the Council and throughout the town. Internally, we’ve got robust examples of this. A latest Improving Health by way of Housing summit examined how our housing division and exterior companions can use public well being approaches to enhance the standard of housing throughout the town; the Council is utilizing the internationally recognised Health in All Policies framework to enhance the constructed setting, bringing collectively colleagues from throughout housing, planning, coverage and public well being. And in fact our distinctive well being safety work is finished not simply by public well being employees however professionals from disciplines throughout the Council and past, together with environmental well being, social care, schooling and group teams.

Through the Public Health grant, we fund programmes and providers which cowl every little thing from pre-conception by way of to older individuals, investing in groups throughout the Council. This means we will contribute to parenting assist, early years and college age growth, sports activities growth, environmental well being, wholesome properties and grownup social care. All making a distinction to individuals’s well being and wellbeing.

If you wish to assist discover out extra about RSPH’s work on the broader public well being workforce go to their web site and full their on-line survey earlier than the 8^th October.

Eustace De Sousa is a Consultant in Public Health, offering interim senior stage assist to the Public Health group. He has labored in different native authorities, regionally for the NHS, and most lately for the nationwide group at Public Health England, main on well being inequalities and the life course.