Cumbria training location guide
Cumbria- a place of challenge and adventure!
Cumbria is one of the most beautiful places in the country. Home to the Lake
District, flanked by the pennies and miles of beautiful coast lines, no where
else in England boasts such exhilarating and inspirational landscapes.
Cumbria has a population of about 496,000 over an area of 2,635 square
miles, and is the third largest NHS Trust area in England. It has a range of
different types of communities, ranging from relatively well-off market towns,
rural areas and more disadvantaged areas including two designated
“Spearhead” areas, Barrow-in-Furness and Carlisle. Local government
operates as a two-tier arrangement, comprising of Cumbria County Council
and six district councils. NHS Cumbria is progressing arrangements for
clinically-led locality executives at a district level, which will have devolved
responsibility for commissioning and managing the health and health care of
individuals and communities in their locality.
The Public Health Directorate is a progressive multi-disciplinary department
committed to improving health and tackling inequalities. The Directorate
provides the chief source of specialist public health advice and leadership to
NHS Cumbria, other partners and local communities.
2. Organisation of training and facilities available to trainees
There are four training posts approved by the Faculty of Public Health, three
of which are currently filled.
The department also has FY2 doctors on placement in South Cumbria, and
hosts short placements for undergraduate students and others seeking
professional development in public health.
3. Accredited Trainers/Educational Supervisors
There are four accredited trainers within Cumbria with a diverse range of
experience and interests. Trainees have regular as well as open access to
their trainers.
Professor John Ashton, Director of Public Health (joint appointment with
Cumbria County Council) and Chief Medical Officer for Cumbria
John Ashton was born in Liverpool and has spent most of his professional life
based there whilst working across the North West. He has always striven to
connect academic and service Public Health with political and social action for
health improvement. John is best known for his work on family planning and
abortion services, Healthy Cities, and the New Public Health. Having spent 13
years as Regional Director of Public Health for the North West.
John Ashton is one of the most experienced public health practitioners and
teachers in the country, and has contributed to the development of public
health thinking and practice at a national and international level. Although a
generalist, his areas of special interest include public engagement, local
government, urban health, behavioural epidemiology and health advocacy. He
believes in giving trainees opportunities to show what they are made of.
Dr Rebecca Wagstaff, Deputy Director of Public Health
Rebecca’s main area of work is the NHS Commissioning Agenda. She has a
particular interest in screening and women’s health
Carole Wood, Associate Director of Public Health-South Cumbria
Carole is the Lead Trainer for Public Health, and has a locality leadership
remit for health improvement across the districts Eden, South Lakeland and
Barrow in Furness. She also leads public health input to the children’s health
service commissioning Board. She has a specialist interest in nutrition and
dietetics.
Dr Nigel Calvert, Associate Director of Health Protection
Nigel is lead for health protection in Cumbria, and has extensive experience
from previous work as a consultant in communicable diseases for the Health
Protection Agency.
4 Other staff involved in supporting trainees
The training location offers the opportunity to work alongside a variety of
medical and non-medical consultants, specialists in public health and others
who have key roles in health improvement and reducing health inequalities.
The staff listed below are able to supervise and advise trainees on a range of
tasks and learning outcomes.
Cathy Wynne, Associate Director of Public Health Partnerships
Cathy leads on partnership work at county level, working closely with Cumbria
County Council. She leads on strategy development on healthy weight,
tobacco, alcohol and sustainability, and chairs the Health thematic partnership
of the County Strategic Partnership, which has responsibility for the Local
Area Agreement. She oversees the development of the Cumbria Public
Health Network, and links to Regional networks.
Jane Muller, Associate Director of Public Health – North Cumbria
Jane provides locality leadership for health improvement across the districts
of Allerdale, Copeland and Carlisle. She chairs the Carlisle LSP, leading the
Carlisle Healthy City initiative alongside Carlisle City Council. She is also
commissioning lead for sexual health.
Dr Elaine Church, Mental Health commissioning lead and Consultant in
Public Health
4. Additional Training Opportunities
Training in Cumbria presents a wide range of training opportunities to suit all
phases of training.
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Working with GP-led Commissioning – Cumbria has been at the
forefront of developing clinically-led commissioning arrangements,
and is in an advanced stage of devolving budgets to 6 localities led
by general practitioners. Registrars will have the opportunity to play
in to the development of this commissioning model as it progresses
under the new NHS policy directives.
Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and the Cumbria Intelligence
Observatory - The aim of the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory
(CIO) is to bring together existing research and analysis resources
throughout Cumbria, working jointly with partners to provide
information and intelligence for Cumbria. The link to the observatory
provides registrars with an opportunity to develop their data and
intelligence skills.
Health Impact Assessments – registrars have been involved in a
number of Health Impact assessments in Cumbria and the HIA
process continues to be developed presenting particular training
opportunities for example in mental health impact assessment and
the development of new health facilities.
Academic Links
Cumbria has good links with both the University of Lancaster and
the University of Cumbria. Lancaster is a world class research and
teaching institution. Recent registrars have had active research
links with the Institute of Health Research and the Lancaster
Environment Centre. Lancaster also provides academic supervision
for registrars.
Cumbria Public Health Network
The Cumbria Public Health Network is a recent development and
offers registrars the opportunity to play a role shaping the network
to meet the needs of the public health community.
Health Promoting Hospitals
Cumbria is served by two hospital trusts, one of which has recently
developed it’s Public Health Strategy, which presents opportunities
for registrars to become involved in developing the PH in acute
sector agenda across the county.
Prison health
Cumbria has one prison, HMP Haverigg which gives registrars the
opportunity to become involved in developing prison health.
5 Examples of recent trainee work
SpRs come to Cumbria in different phases of their training and have been
involved in a wide variety of projects and work areas, within public health
team and beyond, on both a locality and Cumbria wide footprint. SpR’s
regularly take the lead on significant areas of work as well as being supported
when initiating projects from their own initiative and perspective. Such
opportunities present SpR’s with the chance to both meet learning needs and
competencies and more importantly to develop the skills attributes and
leadership to practice public health at consultant level. Some recent work
areas are described below.
Suicide Prevention Strategy
Acting Consultant in Public Health (former SpR) Dr Jane Mathieson has led
on developing a Cumbria wide suicide prevention strategy and overseeing its
implementation.
Cumbria Post flooding research network
The recent flooding and shooting incidents in Cumbria presented significant
challenges to public health as well as opportunities for registrars to gain
experience of the emergency response and recovery phases. SpR Donald
Read was involved in developing a research framework post flooding which
brings together partners from the academic and recovery communities to
ensure that high quality research is developed which meets the needs of
communities in Cumbria as well as informing future resilience and recovery in
Cumbria and beyond.
Cumbria wide screening review
SpR Donald Read has taken the lead on reviewing screening programmes
across Cumbria and developing the ‘lifetime pathway’ of screening
opportunities.
Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
SpR Ben Barr led on developing the JSNA for Cumbria and took the chair of
the JSNA group. The results of Bens work can be seen here:
http://www.cumbriaobservatory.org.uk