Public Health Practice in the UK - Essay Example

? Role of Public Health Practitioners in the UK Introduction Public health practice is concerned with protecting the health of the public. It comprises of clinical care, surveillance, programmatic assessments, and epidemiological investigations for the public. According to Baggot ,public health is “the art and science of controlling disease, lengthening life and advancing health through the planned efforts and informed decisions of community, organizations, private and public, individuals and communities” (Baggott, 2000).These activities are the core of what practitioners of public health do in the United Kingdom. The main priorities of public Health policy in 2011 and 2012 includes controlling of death and dying, countering depression to promote emotional well being, achieving sexual and reproduction health and ensuring health at work. Through public health, the government in conjunction with the public health practitioners share the goals of giving every child the best start in life and enabling the children, the youth and the old people to utilise their potential and have control over their lives. It also plans to boost ill-health prevention and develop healthy and sustainable communities. The fair society healthy lives also seek to create fairness in accessing jobs and ensure healthy living standards for every citizen. Public health practitioners are the key implementers of any given health policy that is laid down. During their call to duty, they under go various challenges, rewards and experiences depending on a number of circumstances. This paper discusses the role of three public health practitioners Lucy Smith a public health manager in charge of mental well wellbeing, Sue Levi a consultant in public health medicine and Thara Raj a public health manager in sexuality and immunisation. 1) Name - Lucy Smith Role - Public Health Manager of Mental Wellbeing Area - NHS Lambeth UK Lucy Smith, who is the Public Health Manager in Mental Wellbeing at NHS Lambeth, is charged with the roles of ensuring that the mental well being of all the residents in Lambeth is achieved. She provides guidelines and policy on management of well being of the people for schools, institutions and the community at large. She carries out time to time evaluation on the level of implementation of the public health policy on mental wellness and measure it outcomes after the implementation period. She organises, supervise and conduct trainings and meetings for local agencies, employers and school management teams to educate them on ways of improving and promoting the mental well being within their institutions. She continuously conducts research to find new ways of engaging the local authorities and agencies on ways that reduce health risks and promote the mental well being of the Lambeth residents. Some of the challenges that Lucy Smith faces as the one in charge of mental well being include failure to comply with the set down policies that promote a culture of participation, equality and fairness by employers and some learning institutions. This is because most employers are profit oriented and some of the policies designed do not work in support of making fast money. There is also limited number of psychological institutions that can offer counselling and mentorship advice to institutions and individuals in to promote mental wellbeing (Rowitz, 2009). Some of the approaches that are applied by Lucy Smith are through collaboration and the use of social media in promoting well being. One of such groups is “Mind Apples”. She clearly shows her support by saying that "We are thrilled to be working with Mindapples in our GP practices to get people talking about mental health in a positive way.” (Lucy Smith) Through this media, people are able to share positive thoughts on how they can stay positive in life and healthy too. Smith also promotes teamwork and collaboration among all the stakeholders in promoting mental well beings .For example, allocating specific topics of discussion to specific training agencies so that every area on mental well being becomes covered. Another approach used by Smith alongside her colleagues is conducting public forums where the members of the pubic give their opinions on how to successfully promote their own mental well being. The approaches used by Smith significantly contribute to the success in achieving mental health. Through this approaches, the most recent and efficient ways of achieving mental well being are suggested and adopted by the citizens. However, the public health sector needs to put more pressure on the government and corporations to heavily invest into the mental well being of the citizens and employees. This can be achieved through public lobbying and subsequent follow-ups. According to the joint assessment board, the major health needs of the Lambeth residents include prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, dealing with mental health, sexual health, emotional well being, safeguarding adults and children, learning disability, health eating in children and young adults, the personalisation of the health care services and providing affordable housing for vulnerable people. 2) Name – Sue Levi Role – Consultant in public health medicine Area- Barking and Dagenham The roles played by Sue Levi include offering professional advice the local public health officials and any other person with the mandate of providing health services to the public. She is in charge of reviewing, analysing and the developing of program and services in various health sectors under her mandate. These include maternal and infant health, substance abuse, primary care women’s reproduction, health care among others. She is a consultant in public health medicine in developing criteria for collecting and analysing information that will help local public programs adopt the right medicine procedures and use. She develops and interprets rules, procedures and policies that are related to health medicines and services in regard to public health programs. She is also in charge of developing educational material, reports and any other type of information or documents to enhance public awareness on medical issues. Furthermore, she is in charge of designing and implementing health education and training sessions for state and local health workers and agencies. As the manager, she oversees the work of professional staff by reviewing their work assignments, coordinating activities, setting priorities and resolving and medical related problems. She is the overall person in charge of giving the final solution to any issues regarding the use of medicine. The challenges faced by Sue Levi as a Consultant in Public Health Medicine include frequent travelling. As a consultant in public health medicine, Sue is supposed to keep travelling from one council to another to review and update the health agencies and personnel on any new events or procedures. It is also difficult to get all the members together to conduct training and carry out capacity building as she is supposed to. This is because, most of the public health practitioners are overwhelmed with duties and finding ample time to conduct training may prove difficult. Due to this, carrying out all her designated roles becomes a challenge. She is sometimes overwhelmed with the roles and this forces her to work overtime leading to burnouts from time to time. Some of the public health practitioner under her are resistant to change, thus when it comes to the implementation of set changes some sections of the public sector drag behind making her work difficult. The approach used by Sue Levi in accomplishing her role as the consultant in Public Health include drawing evidence and carrying needs assessment by use of questionnaires ,interviews and feedback from the residents. When needs assessment is carried out, the public health consultant in conjunction with other stakeholders will learn of how patients react to given medical conditions .This also involves taking a comparative analysis in other places , evaluating the decision taken and making decisions and plans on how what other places are undertaking the appropriate steps to address health needs. Another approach that is taken by Sue is through partnership with other agencies with the same objectives in the health sector. To tackle the problem of minimal time to conduct training and meeting, Sue makes use of the communication technology to communicate and update staff on any changes or new regulations in place. Her approach in addressing the need and fulfilling her role is to some extend successful. Her partnerships and collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders has made her work easy because they assist in conducting training and supervising the use of medicine as prescribed by the public health policy. In fulfilling her roles, Sue works in line with the health needs of the population in Barking and Dagenham. According to a research conducted, the most pressing needs of the residents here include smoking, alcohol, physical activity, healthy eating, screening and medication and domestic violence. It also includes death and dying, health at work, depression and emotional well being and sexual and reproduction health. 3) Name - Thara Raj Role - Public Health Manager (sexuality and immunisation) Area - Newham, London UK The roles of Thara Rag as the Public Health Manager in sexuality and immunisation include working with the local practitioners and agencies in improving the immunisation to protect children against the ten infectious diseases that could lead to deaths. They also work together to promote healthy sexuality by offering counselling services on sexuality issues, promoting the use of contraceptives by sexually active young women ,married women and mothers. To promote safe abortion, prevent teenage pregnancies and promote safe motherhood. He is also in charge of conducting training and educational facilities that give information to public health practitioners and other stakeholders on how to improve immunisation and promote safe and healthy sexuality. The challenges faced by Thara Haj in implementing his duties include long and irregular working hours. Some facilities do not have the right technology in preservation of the immunisation kits and this leads to damage of the drugs leading to loss. In terms of sexuality, the members of the public are not willing to open up and discuss sexuality issues that affect them. This acts as an impediment towards the promotion of safe and healthy sexuality among the residents. Teenage pregnancies and abortions are another challenge that needs to be solved. Another challenge that is faced by Thara is dealing with the gay community in promoting healthy sexuality issues. The approaches that are used by Haj as the manager in sexuality and immunisation is through working closely with other health care workers and parents in ensuring that all the children are immunised on time. This is done through media and advertisement, public forums and social networking. There is a close relationship between the pubic health sector, the learning institutions and the church in promoting healthy sexual lives. Introduction of sexuality topics has played significant role towards promoting healthy sexuality. The approach used have seen significant improvement in the rate of immunisation where a 99.9 % mark is achieved. The safe use of contraceptives has also made significant improvement among the women. The health needs of the population in New Ham include adult social care, adult abuse, achieving a self directed support, living with HIV/AIDS, mental well being and disability. Conclusion To meet the health needs of the community in various boroughs the public health sector, there is need to collect evidence, develop relevant policies to address specific needs and implement these policies. There is also need for continual consultation to test the validity of the policy and see it that it has met the set objectives. The public health takes a leadership role in the local authorities to see to it that all laid down polices are implemented. There is a stronger emphasis on the outcomes of the health policy put in place .In addition, to successfully promote health and wellness in the community, the public health practitioners puts itself in a clear situation so that it can get 100 % support from the government in terms of finances and support. Even though the political class plays a role towards addressing the health needs of the communities they represent, they in most cases lack sufficient knowledge in understanding how health needs are arrived at and how they should be solved. This is why, the politicians, public health practitioners and the government among other stakeholders should work together in coming up with the best policies to address the needs. Public health practitioners have the universal role of promoting the health and well being of the communities they serve in. 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