Welcome to the School of Public Health

Details

An introduction from the Head of School, Dan Seddon

I am delighted to introduce the North West School of Public Health to you. I have written this introduction in December 2010.

The School is part of the Mersey Deanery, and serves the whole of the North West of England. We train public health experts and leaders to serve the people of the North West. Our graduates hold jobs in NHS and academic organisations, in the Health Protection Agency, and in a variety of other settings. These public health teams and jobs will change dramatically over the next two years, because of the implementation of the Coalition Government plans for the NHS and for Public Health in England.

The rest of these pages describe our structure, who we are, and point to where further information can be found.

My aim as Head of School is to maintain and improve the quality and outputs of the public health training scheme. I want graduates of the scheme to be proud that they trained in the North West, and to be good adverts for public health. I also want to make sure that we benefit from more integration with specialty schools, so that we can learn from each other.

The School is one of the Specialty Schools in the Mersey Deanery. We follow Deanery policies and processes that meet the standards and guidance for training in place from the United Kingdom General Medical Council. The Public Health curriculum itself is designed by the Faculty of Public Health, our responsible professional college. Training in Public health is multidisciplinary: about half of our Specialty Registrars are from a medical background, and half from other professions..

The Public Health School includes over 50 people on the specialist public health training programme.

My job is for one and a half days per week, and I am normally be in the Deanery office on Wednesday morning and Thursdays. For the rest of the week I work as a Public Health Consultant in Halton & St Helens, and for the Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Network. We have a small but highly proficient admin team here at the Deanery, provided in the Section of General Practice and Public Health. I am very privileged to be supported by three excellent Zonal Programme Directors who each have one half day per week to develop the portfolios of training locations in Cumbria and Lancashire; Greater Manchester and Cheshire and Merseyside.

I was a general practice principal in Cheshire until 1992, and trained in Public Health in Liverpool, St Helens and Cumbria. Between 2002 and 2006 I was a PCT Director of Public Health in the North West. I have been an active Public Health Trainer and National Examiner for over ten years. Since 2007 I have held key responsibilities in cancer, screening and individual funding decisions at NHS Halton and St Helens. I provide public health expertise and leadership in the Cancer Network for Merseyside and Cheshire.