Public health
Our purpose
Public Health provides national leadership across NHS England and the wider health system to improve and protect the health of the population, reduce health inequalities, and enable longer, healthier lives.
This role is central to the 10 Year Health Plan and fundamental to delivering the three shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.
How we work
- We bring a population health and prevention lens into NHS strategy, policy and delivery, helping the system move beyond siloed, disease‑by‑disease approaches towards more collaborative, integrated and equitable models of care.
- We set and uphold public health professional standards, and provide specialist expertise in prevention, health improvement and reducing health inequalities.
- We turn data, evidence and research into practical insight that informs decisions, strengthens organisational memory of what works, and balances effectiveness, efficiency and equity.
- We analyse the value of interventions, helping to focus NHS resources on actions that deliver sustainable, long‑term improvements in population health and outcomes.