The RSPH has today announced that it will be launching a range of Education Pathways and Training Packages to support professionals across a wide range of sectors to contribute meaningfully to public health and prevention.

What are public health workforce education pathways?

Pathways and Packages combine RSPH’s training and qualifications to support careers, build skills and help individuals to progress in the wider public health workforce.

Modular Pathway

The Modular Pathway is aimed at anyone working within the wider public health workforce. It is designed to help individuals gradually accumulate a body of qualifications and training that can support entry intro careers, career progression and recognition of skills.

The modular pathway is designed to span the full scope of RSPH education and training, with points assigned against all qualifications, training or accredited programmes. Individuals will be able to self-select modules to complete 60 points in total over 12 or 18 months.

Training Packages

The new training includes tailored packages of educational products for professionals working in the sports, fitness, and leisure sectors. This includes the Make Every Contact Count training which encourages short, informal, focused conversations about health behaviour topics such as diet and alcohol intake.

Level 2 Award in Public Health

Another key aspect of the new education offering is the introduction of a new gateway qualification, the Level 2 Award in Public Health. Pitched at the same level as a GCSE, the new qualification will, for the first time, offer the opportunity to take a recognised career pathway into public health.

The Level 2 Award in Public Health is a mandatory qualification in the modular pathway.

Building public health skills is key to tackling health challenges

The announcement follows last year’s publication of the landmark report, The Unusual Suspects: Unlocking the Potential of the Wider Public Health Workforce.

The report highlighted the significant but often overlooked contribution that parts of the UK workforce play in supporting community health and wellbeing.

RSPH has consistently argued that building public health skills outside of traditional healthcare system is key to tackling the major health challenges facing the UK, such as acute demand on health and social care and rising waiting lists for treatment.

Last year RSPH launched a consultation which saw hundreds of responses from professionals in the wider public health workforce. It 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. 

Professor Bola Owolabi MRCGP FRSPH, Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England and Vice President of the Royal Society for Public Health, said:

"Developing the workforce's understanding of health inequalities is a key part of bridging the gap. To build a healthier future we need to look beyond the traditional treatment settings and think about how we bring prevention directly into our communities.

The educational pathways that RSPH have developed are a critical part of this. The creation of a gateway Level 2 Qualification in Public Health has tremendous potential to increase the understanding of health inequalities across different sectors and industries, using tools such as the Core20PLUS5 framework. This is key to reaching people and ensuring we make a bigger impact on the nation's health."

William Roberts FRSPH, Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health, said:

“Public health happens everywhere. It 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. 

Recognising this and equipping our workforce with the skills they need to go even further will be key to moving to a genuinely preventative system. This cuts to the core of why we are doing this.

We all want to see a healthier and more prosperous future for this country. To make that happen we need our workforce to be supported and equipped with the public health skills to make a real meaningful impact on our health and wellbeing.”