A change in approach to public health in the Isle of Man is being taken forward with the appointment of a new director at the Department of Health and Social Care, Dr Henrietta Ewart.

Dr Ewart has served as interim Director of Public Health since April 2015 and, during that time, has modernised the Island’s work in this important field of medicine. This has seen a focus on greater collaboration and the use of evidence to plan and make decisions, in some cases resulting in a move away from directly delivering services.

Minister for Health and Social Care, Kate Beecroft MHK, said: “I congratulate Dr Ewart on her appointment and her work over the past 18 months as interim director. The discipline of public health has a key role in delivering the Island’s five year strategy for health and social care and is a lead contributor to our goal of helping people to take greater responsibility for their own health.”

Public health focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of the whole population, rather than the care and treatment of individuals. It delivers services in four key areas:

• Health intelligence – assess, measure and describe health risks, health needs and health outcomes
• Health improvement – prevent ill-health and support earlier intervention
• Health protection – protect the public from infectious disease and environmental hazards
• Care advice – provide evidence-based advice on sustainable and effective health and social care services.

Dr Ewart’s initial priorities will include ensuring that the Department has good information on the health of the Island’s population so that both health promoting activities and health care can be targeted to achieve maximum improvement.

Dr Ewart said: “Achieving improvements in health across our population requires collaboration across government and local communities. If we are to work together to improve the Island’s health and wellbeing it is important for the public to understand our change in approach and how we function. With that in mind we have produced material to explain ‘who we are and what we do’. There is a new information leaflet that sets this out along with a video outlining some of the current priority areas for public health and what we’re doing to address these.

“We’ve also updated our website www.gov.im/publichealth and continue to publish regular updates, news and advice via Twitter @publichealthiom and Facebook /publichealthiom.”

Dr Ewart trained in medicine at Oxford University and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. After working as a junior doctor in the Royal Air Force, she trained in Public Health Medicine in the West Midlands. She has over 25 years’ experience of working as a consultant and director across all areas of public health practice.

Dr Ewart, who was appointed following an open and competitive recruitment process, will take up the substantive role of Director of Public Health in December.

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