Directors of Public Health

Liverpool – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Harry Doyle, Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing & Culture

Director of Public Health Lead: Strategic Intelligence & Partnerships, Employment & Skills, Communications and Workforce & CPD, LCR Violence Reduction Unit (VRU)

Prof Ashton was appointed Director of Public Health for Liverpool City Council in April 2020 in a joint appointment with the University of Liverpool, where he is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Public Health and Policy.

He leads a team of over 30 people in the local authority, covering a range of public health activities including the commissioning of public health services, health protection, health improvement, health care public health, embedding health in all policies approaches and addressing the wider determinants of health.

Matt is passionate about bringing together the best people and partnerships in the region to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities in the communities we serve, and works closely with other directors of public health across Cheshire and Merseyside, as part of the CHAMPS public health collaborative, where he is the current vice chair of the Collaborative, leading on Strategic Intelligence and Research, Communications, Social Marketing, and Strategic Partnerships.

Matt is the chair of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) policy advisory group on healthy places, as well as being the chair of the Faculty of Public Health special interest group for health improvement.  Matt is also the lead Director of Public Health for the Liverpool City Region Violence Reduction Partnership, and for Food Active, a healthy weight programme delivered by the Health Equalities Group, and commissioned by local authority public health teams, NHS organisations, and Public Health England teams at both regional and national level.

Cheshire West and Chester – Public Health Annual Report 

Elected Member – Cllr Val Armstrong – Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health

Helen began her career as a registered nurse in London.  Her interest in maps and mapping disease soon led to the discovery of epidemiology, completion of a master’s degree in Population Health, and a PhD in Social Medicine.  She then worked at the University of Liverpool followed by a stint at Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine.

Helen has held numerous national and international roles, for example with NICE, DfID, the World Health Organization and the World Bank.  She has worked with many institutions, undertaking research and training in some of the world’s poorest regions.  Projects include supporting the Chinese National Government to introduce social science research methods into its National Tuberculosis Research Programme and supporting the Government of Syria to set up their National Centre for Health Research, Teaching and Consultancy.

Helen joined Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Public Health team in 2013 as a Consultant in Public Health and was appointed Interim Director of Public Health in May 2023.  She is an accredited Educational Supervisor for the Public Health Training Programme and is the North West Training Programme Director for COVID Recovery.  She is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and North West Board Member and trustee for the Faculty.

Helen has been a visiting Professor at the University of Chester since 2014.  She works closely with the Faculty of Health and Social Care, in both research and teaching roles and is a member of the Faculty’s Research and Innovation Committee.

Sefton Council – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Ian Moncur – Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing

Margaret Jones was appointed Director of Public Health for Sefton MBC in September 2020. Margaret is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and was the North West Faculty Adviser from 2017 to 2022.

Margaret trained as a dietitian at the Queens College Glasgow and subsequently worked Walton hospital and in Liverpool Community Services. There she developed a more public health focused post, completing an MSC in health promotion and leading on community food interventions including the introduction of one of the UK’s first food worker projects.

Margaret joined the North West Specialist Public Health training programme in 1999 where her main focus of work was on children and young people and food policy. She Joined Sefton Public Health in 2005 as a consultant, initially specialising in children and maternity and Healthcare Public Health, she has also led the commissioning of sexual health and drug and alcohol services. She was the lead educational supervisor in Sefton until 2020.

Margaret is the DPH lead for work to tackle alcohol misuse.

St Helens – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Anthony Burns – Portfolio Holder for Wellbeing, Culture and Heritage

Ruth du Plessis began her career as a nurse and health visitor in Sefton after training at Liverpool University. She spent a few years living and volunteering in South Africa, providing palliative care to HIV/AIDS patients in a remote area.

After returning to the UK with a desire to influence change at a structural level she studied for a Masters in Applied Public Health. Ruth then worked as a development manager for cardiovascular disease as part of Sefton’s public health team. At this time she also took on a part time secondment as Merseyside Diabetes Manager.

Ruth then moved to a position with the Champs Support Team as Health Care Programme Lead for Cheshire and Merseyside. Here, Ruth was successful at obtaining a place on the Training Scheme to become a Consultant in Public Health.

During her training she worked at Tameside on sexual health and suicide prevention, at the National Institute for Health and Care (NICE) on workplace health and at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) teaching international public health and working on malaria prevention.

Ruth joined St Helens Council whilst still a registrar in 2017, initially working on social prescribing and early help. Following completion of her training she took on the lead roles of public health on sexual health, children’s health, workplace health and mental health. Most recently she has led part of the pandemic response, managing the contact tracing team, outbreak management and targeted testing.

Ruth is passionate about reducing health inequalities, relieving suffering, prevention being better than cure and evidence-based practice.

Knowsley – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Councillor details – Councillor Christine Bannon – Knowsley Council

Chair of Directors of Public Health Executive Board

Sarah McNulty is Assistant Executive Director (Public Health) / Director of Public Health, with Knowsley Council. 

Sarah is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. She originally studied medicine at Leeds University and, after initially training in general practice in Yorkshire and Liverpool, trained in Public Health in Cheshire and Merseyside.

Sarah joined Public Health Knowsley in 2009, initially specialising in Health Protection and Healthcare Public Health.  Since June 2019 she has been Director of Public Health. 

Sarah has led a number of cross-sector programmes and is the Champs DPH Lead for Screening and Immunisations, Diabetes and High Blood Pressure. She is also the Co-Chair of the Merseyside Local Health Resilience Partnership (LHRP).

Halton – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Marie Wright – Portfolio holder for Health and Wellbeing

Dr Ifeoma Onyia is Director of Public Health with Halton Borough Council.

Ifeoma (pronounced ee-for-ma) is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. She originally studied medicine in Nigeria and trained in general practice across Yorkshire, Cheshire and Merseyside before completing her public health training also in Cheshire and Merseyside.

Ifeoma has worked as a Consultant in Public Health for the NHS in Wirral and Stoke-on-Trent before joining Halton in 2013, leading on Healthcare Public Health, Intelligence and Governance. With her team she is focused on tackling the impacts of COVID-19 on the local population, maintaining a stable, vibrant innovative public health workforce and embracing the opportunities for improving health for Halton people.

Ifeoma also has an NIHR funded role to build public health research capacity in Local Authorities and working with others recently launched the Cheshire and Merseyside Public Health Research Hub.

In her spare time she enjoys reading, creative writing, running and walking, though not necessarily in that order.

Cheshire East – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Jill Rhodes – Cabinet Member for Public Health

Matt leads the public health team at Cheshire East Council. Before becoming the Director of Public Health he led on health protection and the wider determinants of health as a Consultant in Public Health at Cheshire East Council since 2017. Before beginning his career in public health in 2013 Matt worked as a junior doctor. He gained his Masters in Public Health from the University of Birmingham in 2014 and worked in public health teams across the West Midlands before joining Cheshire and Merseyside. He is focussed on building sustainable communities and places, built on sound public health intelligence, in order to reduce inequity and to bring people and neighbourhoods together to address the wider determinants of health and wellbeing.

Matt is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and an Honorary Lecturer in Public Health at Keele University, he is also an examiner for Keele Medical School.

Wirral – Public Health Annual Report

Elected Member – Cllr Yvonne Nolan, Chair Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee

Director of Public Health Lead: Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Contact Tracing Hub

Dave has worked within Public Health for nearly 30 years, within the NHS and local government. This has mainly been within Cheshire and Warrington but also working across Cheshire and Merseyside and more broadly across the North West. Dave started off on an employment trainee scheme in Knowsley which provided him with the grounding required to progress and build an exciting career in public health.

Dave was Acting Deputy Director of Public Health in Warrington from 2017 before his newly appointed role of  Director of Public Health for Wirral and he was a senior member of Warrington’s Public Health Team since 2002. He has been responsible for leading a wide range of programmes to improve the health and wellbeing of Warrington residents. As Deputy Director Dave lead the Core Public Health Team, oversaw the commissioning of all public health services and ensured that we met our statutory duties.

In addition, Dave shared the acting up arrangements for the vacant Director of Public Health for a period of nine months which coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time Dave was heavily involved in developing the local response to the acute phase of the pandemic and he assumed responsibility for the wider services of Housing, Neighbourhoods and Public Protection.

Warrington – Public Health Annual Report

David has a long career working in the public health system in both local government and the NHS starting initially as a classroom teacher where his passion for improving health was first awoken during the early days of HIV. Leaving teaching to work in local government he first worked in health policy roles in local authorities in Lancashire and Merseyside before taking on a role as Health Promotion team lead in the 1990s in what was Chorley & South Ribble Health Authority.

He spent 15 happy years working in the Lancashire system, seeing out various NHS reforms and gathering skills and knowledge which eventually enabled him to apply for registration as a consultant in public health and go on to work for Central Lancashire PCT. Needing to stretch his horizons and experience other economies he moved to Salford PCT and managed the transition of the public health team from there into the Local Authority in 2013. Two years later with the departure of then DPH he took up that position and led the public health team as it merged with the council’s corporate strategy, policy and intelligence functions.

Two years later he was asked to support the Bolton team when their DPH was seconded into the Greater Manchester population health lead position, this led to him being DPH across the two districts for 2 years until he eventually left to move to Public Health England in 2018, his timing being impeccable to coincide with the start of the pandemic which saw him heavily engaged at the interface between local DsPH and the national politics of the pandemic response.

Seeking a change and an opportunity to reconnect with the more grounded work in local districts he left what had then become the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to join the Lancashire team working on a number of short-term projects. He now joins the Warrington team on a similar interim basis to support the organisation through its transition to a new DPH.

His passions in public health have usually revolved around the commissioning programme supported by the public health grant with a particular leaning to drugs and alcohol (an area he often led in his previous roles) and using public health analysis to influence and shape wider council strategy and policy.

Ian was appointed Director of Population Health in June 2023 and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Chester.

He has a background in delivering successful health improvement programmes within Local Authorities and NHS Trusts across the North West. Having completed his Master of Public Health Degree at the University of Liverpool, Ian undertook his specialist public health training in Greater Manchester. Joining Salford City Council in 2014, he was the prevention and community assets lead for the internationally recognised Salford Together Integrated Care programme.

In 2017, Ian was appointed Director of Public Health for Cheshire West and Chester and led the borough-wide response to the COVID pandemic from the start.  During the pandemic he became the Chair for the Cheshire & Merseyside Public Health Collaborative and was the lead DPH for the Cheshire Local Resilience Forum, providing public health advice to the Strategic Coordinating Group for Cheshire & Warrington.

A Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, Ian is now the lead Director for NHS Cheshire & Merseyside’s Population Health programme and a member of both the Health and Care Partnership and Integrated Care Board. This work recently included the production of the innovative All Together Fairer Marmot Community Strategy with the Institute of Health Equity.