Out and about with Louise: strengthening our approach to policy (part 1)

The end of 2023 and start of 2024 has seen much of the work we have been progressing since I joined start to come to fruition. An important strategic objective for my role has been to strengthen our approach to policy which I know is important to our members.

Advisory Panels

Advisory Panels (APs) have been in place to guide policy making for some time and we are embarking on a program to supercharge these. As well as important work to react to political movement and consultation responses we want to do more proactive work which sets the agenda and leads on discussions. With this objective firmly set we have created a new approach with comprehensive terms of reference (ToR) which will structure new look panels. The new ToR has gone through a rigorous process of consultation both internally and with a selection of members from various sectors and disciplines.

News from the Advisory Panels is now featured within EHN and into 2024 we are working on platforms which will improve communications for panel members and for members to connect to these. We have just completed the first meetings with the new look Public Health and Port Health panels. We had more than 149 respond to our campaign to join with places for students, graduates and members all the way to retired members across disciplines and from around the world. These first meetings were all about introducing ourselves to each other and beginning the process of identifying two or three strategic priorities which panels will focus on.

I continue to be inspired by our volunteers supporting us in this capacity – thank you!

New President 

We were delighted to welcome Mark Elliott into his term as CIEH President. The role of the President is two fold; Mark holds a position as trustee on the board and the ambassadorial role of President. The ambassadorial element of the role see’s Mark engaging with members to share CIEH key messaging and promote our vision of safer, cleaner, healthier environments for everyone. Mark and I work very closely together in respect of the latter, and we have weekly “State of the Nation” meetings to share news, perspectives and support one another. To discover more about Mark’s role and his priorities read his most recent bulletin.

Careers Day at the University of Birmingham

I attended a superbly organised event at the University of Birmingham in early February with MSc students studying Environmental Health and Health and Safety. The program lead, and CIEH member, Dr Daniel Drage organised an afternoon of speakers talking about their careers in environmental health demonstrating the depth and breadth of opportunities. From Janet Bradley, EH manager at Birmingham City Council promoting the work of their extensive team to new graduates Nathan Matthews, Zaynah Maan and Jas Mandair who were all able to talk about their experiences of being new EHOs. Adrian Allman provided a great overview of local authority work from Worcester. It was also an opportunity for students to learn about potential opportunities in the private and other sectors with talks from Chris Jewell from UKHSA, Rob Easton from Shield Safety and Richard Williams from the Environment Agency.

Of course I have had my own squiggly career to describe beginning at Cambridge City Council, in retail, commercial property and in business. It really is a great time to be studying environmental health!

Capacity and capability

We have launched an important work stream to focus on capacity and capability and are in the process of working with stakeholders to develop a new Workforce Satellite Panel. Outputs from this work will shape our policy engagement across 2024 and beyond. It is also included in all relevant key messaging.

During January we worked with UCAS to develop a campaign to encourage students to apply to CIEH accredited undergraduate courses. At the end of the year my colleague Jon Buttolph, Executive Director of Professional Standards prepared a presentation for the board which outlined the stark reality of the loss of places at our accredited Universities.

The February edition of EHN is focused on capacity and capability. There is a great story from Middlesex University covering their apprenticeship program which really is going from strength to strength and we are continuing to showcase all the opportunities for our members.

The Office for Environmental Protection

On 18 January I represented CIEH at the briefing from The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) on the Governments progress with the Environmental Plan. Their annual progress report is available to read online.

I posed the first question to the panel explaining the crucial role of our members as co-regulators with the Environment Agency and their important roles to enforce Environmental Protection Standards within our communities. As well as describing our unique skills I cited the lack of qualified and experienced environmental health professionals working in the field as being a potential factor and why we could be falling short on these targets. Without effective sanctions polluters are not being held to account and without clear regulation businesses have a lack of clarity in respect of expectations. I challenged the panel to consider how we can ensure air, land and water pollution targets can be met with a diminishing EHP workforce especially in our local authorities which are experiencing a funding crises. Read more about this in my blog following this event.