Submit an abstract for this year’s Welsh Public Health Conference 2 weeks to go!

Submit an abstract for this year’s Welsh Public Health Conference – to share your work with delegates through a presentation or poster.

The conference, Health in Wales: The shape of things to come, takes place in Cardiff on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 November 2016.

The conference brings together colleagues from across Wales to explore the challenges that need to be addressed and the opportunities that can be taken to achieve a healthier, happier and fairer Wales for our present and future generations.

Last year, the conference was attended by over 500 people from all four UK nations and across 100 organisations.

Six exciting themes …

The sessions and posters will be considered under the following themes:

Engaging communities as equal partners – working with individuals and groups to create an environment that supports their health and wellbeing and reduces health inequalities.
Building resilient systems and managing threats – growing a resilient community, health and care system that best meets the needs of our present and future population and protects against emerging health threats.
Transforming the delivery of health and care – identifying improvements and innovations to transform health and care service delivery to achieve better outcomes for patients, a more person-centred approach and better meet the needs and expectations of our changing population.
Creating a learning and adaptive public sector – working across silos and boundaries to maximise resources and expertise, and share assets and learning to improve health, care and wellbeing.
Making prevention a priority – identifying effective ways to influence people’s behaviours and encourage healthier lifestyles to prevent disease and illness and to drive a more preventive approach to policy setting and the provision of services across multiple sectors.
Bringing our public with us – involving the public in managing, controlling and deciding about their own care and treatment to enable better outcomes and avoid over-treatment.

Submit your abstract today …

The closing date for entries is 24 July. You can submit your abstract for poster display and/or a presentation – although you will only be selected for one of these formats.

All posters will be on display throughout the two days and this provides a great opportunity to share your work with colleagues in public services across Wales.
Successful presentations will be included in a series of parallel breakout sessions – with one breakout session focusing on each theme.

For further details, visit the website today – which provides full details on how to submit your abstract.

The 2016 RSPH Health & Wellbeing Awards

The awards recognise and celebrate a wide range of activities, policies and strategies that empower communities and individuals, improve the population’s health and address the wider social determinants of health.
There are six categories representing the breadth and reach of public health projects and programmes:

Arts & Health Award
Community Health Development Award
Healthier Lifestyles Award
Public Mental Health & Wellbeing Award
Technology Health & Innovation Award
Workplace Health & Wellbeing Award

The deadline for returning your completed application form and all supporting evidence is 12pm Tuesday 31 May 2016.

For more details

iHV supports open letter on the current crisis in breastfeeding in the UK

An open letter on the crisis in breastfeeding in the UK has been issued today, signed by midwives, health visitors, paediatricians, lactation consultants, breastfeeding counsellors, peer supporters, university researchers and others who work for professional organisations and charities that support families – including the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV).

The letter follows the recent series in The Lancet on breastfeeding – the most comprehensive review of all the evidence on breastfeeding to date.

The open letter states: “The breastfeeding crisis in the UK is in fact a crisis of lack of support for those mothers who choose to breastfeed.” It highlights the recent cuts to breastfeeding support services and the infant feeding specialist posts, which are driven by cuts to public health, which amount to £200 million in total in England.

Cheryll Adams, Executive Director, Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“The uptake of breastfeeding is a major public health issue and the UK must address its very disappointing figures, laid bare by the Lancet, as a first step in also addressing many other health issues improved by breastfeeding, including the challenging year on year increase in childhood obesity which breastfeeding can protect against. A reduction in childhood obesity is a priority for the government so breastfeeding must now also be given priority status with mothers given access to the professional and voluntary support they need to breastfeed for as long as they wish.”

The open letter will be sent to all four governments of the UK and in particular to: Jane Ellison (Minister for Public Health), Ben Gummer (Minister for Care Quality), Duncan Selbie (Chief Executive, Public Health England) and Simon Stevens (Chief Executive of NHS England).

Read full press release

Sharing your practice experience so that others can learn from it – Public Health Experience

“Toyota is a knowledge business.”

This is a remark made by the President of Toyota emphasising the importance of knowledge and not technology to a successful organisation.

Public Health is also a knowledge business, if any part of healthcare, health improvement or health protection is, because although we use technology such as antibiotics and screening tests it is our knowledge about when to use them that is our most valuable resource.

To highlight the importance of knowledge, particularly the type of knowledge gained by experience, Sir Muir Gray and colleagues in Public Health England have started a new initiative called Public Health Experience, which will document the experiences of Public Health professionals like yourself.

The Knowledge will be harvested in the form of an unstructured case report that should no longer than two sides of A4 with the following information:

Title/Author
What was the population health problem?
Why did you decide to tackle it?
What did you do?
Why did you choose this approach?
What was the outcome?
What were the principle lessons learned?
Are there papers available?

If you are interested in submitting a case report, and we hope you will be, please submit them online at http://www.publichealthexperience.com/submit-a-case-report.php.

If you have any questions or need more information please feel free to contact Thomas Brice (thomasbricebvhc@gmail.com) and Anant Jani (anant.r.jani@gmail.com).