North East Teaching Public Health Network (NETPHN)

Improving public health through education

NETPHN is one of nine regional Teaching Public Health Networks (TPHNs) in England developed by the Department of Health. The networks were established in response to the need for a much greater awareness of public health across wider groups in the workforce, if health inequalities are to be tackled successfully.

The main aim of each network is to increase both public-health educator capacity (within academia and practice) and the breadth and depth of learners’ exposure to public health, through strengthening the public-health content of curricula and ensuring its relevance to specific disciplines. This includes not just those groups traditionally exposed to public-health education (that is, public-health specialists and practitioners), but anyone whose work contains elements of public health.

The wider public-health workforce includes those at operational level who can influence the public’s health through their work, such as care assistants, hairdressers, catering assistants in schools, as well as those at the strategic level, such as chief executives, directors of finance and commissioning and town planners. The groups extend well beyond the health service and include, particularly, local authority staff and the third sector.

NETPHN aims to embed public-health-relevant skills in undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD curricula.

A NETPHN Steering Group provides expert advice and support and includes representatives from key partnership organisations including higher education, further education, primary care trusts, the North East Strategic Health Authority, Skills for Health, and Government Office North East.

NETPHN’s key objectives:

• Developing public-health education through higher and further education
• Developing the capacity and capability of public-health educators
• Promoting healthy universities and colleges
• Communication and building the Network

Our purpose

Bringing together education providers with the public-sector workforce and workforce planners to increase capacity to improve health in its wider sense.

NETPHN's Second Annual Conference

The North East Teaching Public Health Network held its Second Annual Conference, Building Public Health Capacity across the North East Region, on 15 January 2009 at the Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle. For details including the speakers' presentation slides select the following link NETPHN Conference

The NETPHN team is currently putting together the Network's Third Annual Conference, which will be held in January 2010.

The Mapping of Public Health Education: Phase 2 report can be dowloaded from the Reports of the website.