Florence Lock
UKHSA Centre for Climate and Health Security (CCHS)- Placement Case Study
The UKHSA Centre for Climate and Health Security (CCHS) is a national-level UKHSA team which was established in 2022.[1] It leads UKHSA’s climate health activity, aiming to mitigate the health impacts of climate change and protect communities, and to support local authority partners to navigate the complexities of climate change and health security. The centre has responsibilities around raising awareness, contributing to surveillance and response, developing evidence, and using evidence to inform policy. The Centre is made up of 5 teams:
- Medical Entomology and Zoonosis Ecology (MEZE)
- Climate Health and Assessment Team (CHAT)
- Extreme Events and Health Protection (EEHP)
- Knowledge Mobilisation (MobT)
- Deputy Director’s office
I completed a 7-month placement at 0.8FTE with CCHS during my ST4 and ST5 years of training. The placement was advertised nationally and, after liaising with the training programme team, I submitted an application. I then took part in an interview held by 2 of the CCHS Public Health Consultants and was successful in being offered a placement. Placements are typically based within either the EEHP or MobT teams, but there is opportunity to work with all teams and many others within UKHSA. I was asked what my preference was during the interview, but this was not guaranteed (depending on capacity and other registrar’s preferences). I was assigned to be on a placement with the EEHP team. This team is a predominantly home-based team with staff spread across the country. Home-working is the norm, with a once monthly team meeting held in the UKHSA office in Canary Wharf in London. I had an Educational Supervisor in the team- the team lead who is a Public Health Consultant. I also worked closely with the other consultants in the team (one of whom acted as an Activity Supervisor for several projects) and with all other team members. I had to complete my KA10 process whilst on the placement and was supported to do this. Due to this being a national placement I was Out of Programme (Training) for it.
My areas of work during the placement were decided by a combination of service and capacity need in the team and my own interests/learning needs. I was fortunate to have signed off all learning outcomes except for 6.9 and the KA10s prior to the placement which allowed more flexibility with work. I completed a wide variety of work which gave me a great array of learning experiences and opportunities to engage with many internal and external partners. My largest area of work was leadership of EEHP work on indoor maximum temperatures. This involved an array of work areas including stakeholder mapping and consultation, co-hosting a workshop with The Physiological Society, evidence reviews, an evidence gathering exercise, development of draft tools and guidance, and planning a consensus statement. Other projects included development of and consultation on a Local Authority Adverse Weather and Health Plan template; planning and engagement to guide development of frontline health/social care resources; oversight of a commissioned research project; leading follow up on the staff survey and action plan development; costing and staff projection work; and exploratory work on climate and health needs assessments and EHO training. I was also involved in the EPRR aspects of the team, including attending and then chairing Joint Dynamic Risk Assessments for Cold Health Alerts (attended by the Met Office, Cabinet Office and other UKHSA colleagues such as Comms).
Overall I learnt a lot on this placement which gave me an opportunity to work directly on an area I am interested in and passionate about- climate and health- and gain experience of working at a national level on some challenging pieces of work. I would be very happy to speak to other registrars who are interested in applying for a future placement with CCHS.
Daniel Stewart
G7 Accountability Working Group Report
The Group of Seven (G7) is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Accountability Working Group (AWG) are responsible for holding G7 members to account for the progress they make against their international development-related commitments. As part of the UK’s presidency of the G7 in 2021 the AWG, asked that a report be prepared looking at progress against G7 global health commitments, particularly in the light of the early lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project gave me the opportunity to work collaboratively alongside another Registrar, consultants, and colleagues from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We were reporting on a regular basis to the AWG itself, a formal group which was comprised of representatives from each of the G7 countries and who provided feedback on the overall direction the report took. We had six weeks to produce the report, which meant that the work was intense and very focussed. The project involved desk research, interviews with subject matter experts, data analysis and some very careful drafting and re-drafting to ensure the findings we presented were both robust but acceptable to G7 members.
The AWG report’s key finding was that G7 partners had made good progress against their development and health related commitments since 2015. Given the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, there continues to be a good case for G7 partners to support Global Health Security, universal health coverage and health systems strengthening, particularly working in collaboration with low and lower-middle income countries. The report, which can be found here, was presented on behalf of the AWG at a health ministerial meeting held shortly before the Carbis Bay G7 meeting, and fed in to the agreements and priorities set at the Carbis Bay G7 meeting.
Drafting the AWG report was a great opportunity to put my public health training and skills, including my quantitative and qualitative analytical skills, team working and leadership, in to practice on a high-profile piece of work. The time scale, and degree of uncertainty introduced in needing to satisfy the competing interests of the AWG members through drafting the report were challenging. However, the opportunity to work alongside a wide range of partners across Government and internationally, and to feed in to G7 discussions around their commitment to supporting global health was very satisfying.