William Roberts, Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health

I often get asked the question: where does public health happen? The answer is simple – everywhere.

Public health happens in sports clubs, village halls, gyms, schools, workplaces, transport and many more everyday settings. It’s often carried out by people that don’t have the words ‘public health’ in their job title but who absolutely do have a role when it comes to keeping people healthy and well.

For many years we have recognised the vast potential to bring public health approaches and skills to occupations that aren’t traditionally considered part of the field. We believe that there is huge scope to complement the work of the core public health workforce by embedding the principles that make it so effective across different sectors, professions, and industries.

Determining exactly how to do this has proved difficult, until now.

What we have learnt from the wider public health workforce

Just over a year ago we launched our landmark report The Unusual Suspects: Unlocking the Potential of the Wider Public Health Workforce. Since then, a lot has changed. However, the messages in the report ring truer today than when they were first published.

Our engagement with the wider workforce which formed the foundation for the report taught us three key things:

• People want to do more in public health. However, there are few clear entry points into the public health system for people from non-traditional routes.
• Crucially, there are almost no clear educational pathways for the continued professional development needed pursue a career in public health.
• There needs to be recognition for the impact the wider workforce has on the health and wellbeing of the nation.

Following on from the report, we launched an extensive consultation which gathered the views of hundreds of people from across the wider public health workforce.

• We found that the overwhelming majority (96%) of respondents believed that the work they do in their role supports public health and health improvement.
• 88% of respondents believed that skills-based public health training would be beneficial to their organisation.

RSPH Pathways

For the past 18 months our team has been working to make the ambitions we voiced in the report a reality. We have developed educational Pathways to meet the needs of the wider workforce. Our Pathways combine our training and qualifications to recognise the workforce’s contributions to public health and support their career development.

The Modular Pathway is designed to help people in the wider public health workforce gradually accumulate a body of qualifications across the full scope of RSPH education and training. This will give learners the support they need to either start a career in public health, progress within their sector and – crucially – get the recognition they need.

Offered at Level 2 and Level 3, there will be a mandatory qualification at both levels: The Level 2 Award in Public Health. This means that, for the first time, there will be an accessible gateway qualification into public health, which can provide a baseline for skills and knowledge across sectors and workforces

RSPH Packages

We have also developed Packages. These are collections of RSPH educational products that are tailored to meet the needs of sector specific workforces. 

Designed off the back of extensive industry engagement, Packages recognise the complexity of the various determinants of health and wellbeing but translate them into accessible training that can be applied to real world settings.

Our first Packages launching this summer will be aimed at:

• Professionals in the sports, fitness and leisure sectors.
• Workplace health champions, community connectors, health navigators, community development workers.

Making the shift to prevention

The focus on ‘prevention’ to deal with the crisis facing the health service has been very much welcome by those of us in the public health community.

Applying public health skills outside of traditional health care settings is core to moving to a genuinely preventative system. From promoting healthy behaviour change, preventing the spread of diseases, and addressing health inequalities – people in the wider workforce can have a huge impact.

Keeping people well and out of hospitals won’t happen without making public health everyone’s business. The shift to prevention will happen in our communities, through the people who meet the public where they are in their everyday lives and workplaces.

Pathways and Packages have the potential to directly support the Government’s shift towards prevention and contribute to the emerging priorities of the 10-Year Plan. By enabling better coordination, greater investment in staff, and freeing up NHS time, this can help deliver a more effective, preventative approach to health in the UK.

Giving our workforce the public health skills they need to make a real impact cuts to the core of Pathways and Packages.

If you would like to find out more about this work, whether you want to learn more about taking one of these routes for yourself or developing a similar offer for your own team, please get in touch with our team.