Mission statement

To establish a local, regional and national profile of public health skills, capacity and shortfalls that can be used to develop practice and to tackle inequalities in health

To highlight the changing nature of public health and public health agenda, enabling participants to review and share their experiences of how public health functions are evolving

Background

The white paper Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation recognised the need for a public health skills audit. The Health Development Agency (HDA) developed a tool that can be used to assess public health skills at the request of the Chief Medical Officer (for further detail of developing the PHSAT, refer to the Public Health Skills Audit 2001 - Research Report:

www.hda-online.org.uk/downloads/pdfs/Research_Report.pdf

The North West Public Health Observatory (NWPHO) has converted the paper-based PHSAT into an electronic version. This online version of the PHSAT will enable a national database to be devised that will provide an economic way to assess public health skills and standardise analysis.