Professor Mike Kelly
Senior Visiting Fellow, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge
Professor Kelly is a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the Institute of Public Health at the University of Cambridge and a member of St John’s College, Cambridge. Between 2005 and 2014 he was the Director of the Centre for Public Health at the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) where he led the teams producing public health guidelines. While at NICE he appeared regularly on the Today Programme and BBC, ITV and Sky Television. He has advised the House of Commons Health Select Committee and been a witness before parliamentary committees on a number of occasions. He has chaired committees for MRC/ESRC, the Foods Standards Agency and recently visited Sydney to advise the Sax Institute there.
From 2005 to 2007 he directed the methodology work stream for the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. This body of work was the first time that a properly evidence-based approach to dealing with health inequalities had been attempted by WHO. He has a continuing interest in health inequalities and is pursuing a programme of research in Cambridge on this topic.
He read Sociology and Economics at the University of York. He undertook post graduate training in Sociology at the University of Leicester before taking his PhD in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Dundee. He has held academic appointments at the Universities of Leicester, Dundee, Abertay, Greenwich, Glasgow, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and UCL as well as Cambridge. He had an academic career lasting twenty-seven years before moving into the National Health Service to lead the Research Team at the Health Development Agency and then moving on to NICE.
Patrick Flaherty
Chief Executive,Somerset County Council
Pat Flaherty has been CEO at Somerset County Council for six years and been with the organisation for thirteen. Pat has led the stabilisation of the organisation and improved its performance whilst downsizing the organisation to reflect the challenge of ongoing budgetary austerity. Pat comes from a civil engineering and transport planning background and has led many infrastructure, economic development and regeneration initiatives. As well as his focus on protecting the Council’s core activities and delivering its Vision and business objectives to improve lives in Somerset he currently leads the council’s input into strategic initiatives such as integrated working with the NHS in Somerset and work with neighbouring areas to enhance the economy of the South-West.
Deborah Caldwell
Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the MsC in Public Health, University of Bristol
Deborah Caldwell is Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the MSc Public Health at the University of Bristol. Her research interests focus on innovative approaches to evidence synthesis to inform decision making in health, particularly as applied to complex interventions and systems. She is Deputy Director of the NICE Guidelines Technical Support Unit, which provides statistical support and training for NICE Guideline developers. She was a member of the WHO Expert Working Group on synthesis of complex interventions and is Co-Convenor of the Cochrane Comparing Multiple Interventions Methods Group. Her substantive areas of research interest include maternal and child health, and prevention and treatment of mental health disorders. Examples of her current projects include identifying components of interventions to prevent anxiety and depression, methods for induction of labour in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, and parenting interventions for prevention of childhood internalising disorders.
Professor Isabel Oliver
Deputy Director of the National Infection Service and Director of Research, Translation and Innovation, Public Health England
Isabel Oliver is the Deputy Director of the National Infection Service and Director of Research, Translation and Innovation at Public Health England. Isabel qualified in Medicine in Madrid and after completing her medical degree, Isabel moved to the UK and worked in acute hospital medicine before then building an interest in public health and epidemiology.
Isabel was the Regional Director of the Health Protection Agency in the South West between 2008 and 2013 when Isabel moved to Public Health England (PHE). Isabel leads the Field Service of PHE that has teams across England with responsibilities for the surveillance, investigation and control of infectious diseases and the health effects from exposure to environmental hazards. Isabel also leads Global Health work of the National Infection Service including programmes to support several low and middle-income countries to strengthen their capacity to detect and respond to public health emergencies. In Isabel’s role as Director of Research, Translation and Innovation, Isabel is responsible for a number of organisation-wide functions including, knowledge and evidence, evaluation, behavioural insights and research governance.
Isabel also co-leads the Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation of Health Protection Interventions at the University of Bristol.