This month, Professor Ian Ashworth finished his role as Director of Public Health for Cheshire West and Chester and started his new position as Director of Population Health for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside.
This is an incredibly exciting step forward for the subregion and the local health and care system, as in his new role Ian will still maintain his seat on the Cheshire and Merseyside Directors of Public Health Executive Board, becoming the 10th Director, a first in the Collaborative’s 20 years of existence.
This will ensure an incredibly close relationship between the subregion’s nine Directors of Public Health and the statutory NHS body, which will massively benefit everyone involved, will encourage more-joined up working and will ultimately allow for more positive health outcomes for Cheshire and Merseyside’s residents.
We would like to take this time to say a massive thank you to Ian for his hard work and commitment during this time as Cheshire West and Chester’s Director of Public Health and his contribution to the Collaborative, which included a six-month stint as Chair of the Executive Board and a much longer term as Chair of the subregion’s Population Health Board, which he will continue in his new role.
We would also like to say a warm welcome to Professor Helen Bromley, who has stepped up to become Director of Public Health for Cheshire West and Chester.
Helen originally trained as a nurse then went on to receive a BA (Hons) in Geography in 1991 and a Master’s degree in Geography and Population Health from Simon Fraser University, (Canada) in 1994. Helen was awarded her PhD (Geography and Social Medicine) in 1998 from the University of Bristol and her Master of Public Health degree from The University of Liverpool in 2007. Helen has undertaken health-related research projects in the UK and overseas, including Canada, New Zealand, China, Mexico, India and Syria and many European countries.
Helen has been a Consultant in Public Health at Cheshire West and Chester for over nine years, as well as taking on many other roles in that time including with the University of Liverpool and University of Chester.