Public Health

About Public Health

The role of Public Health Isle of Man is to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of residents and to reduce health inequalities. This is achieved through strong partnerships with individuals, communities and key public, private and voluntary organisations.

Our Vision

The vision of Public Health is to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of the island's whole population rather than just treating the individual.

Our values

Working systematically to alter our environment, improve lifestyles and reduce risk factors across our population
Prioritising interventions which will achieve change for the greatest number of people at affordable cost
Championing approaches that support individuals, families and communities in taking responsibility for their own health and wellbeing
Private and third sectors to get public health into all policies
Supporting people to take responsibility for their own health by ensuring they have the necessary skills and knowledge to make healthy choices
Ensuring that healthy choices are easy choices in the environments and communities where people live

The Director of Public Health

Dr. Henrietta Ewart, Director of Public Health Dr Henrietta Ewart, Director of Public Health

Henrietta trained in medicine at Oxford and London and was a Royal Air Force Medical Officer before training in Public Health in the West Midlands. She has also worked in Occupational Medicine for Unilever and been a national hunt racecourse medical officer.

She has over thirty years' experience in Public Health in posts covering very different populations. She had held two previous Director posts before coming to the Isle of Man from Peterborough.

Henrietta has been Director of Public Health Isle of Man since 2015. In her role, she is responsible for determining the overall vision and objectives for public health on the Isle of Man. She advises senior officials across government on the various areas of health to support informed decisions on policy.

The Public Health Functions include:

Health Intelligence: Gathering and analysis of data to assess health and health needs of the local population, ensuring data is accessible to all decision makers and continuously improving the quality of the data collected.

Health Protection: Has overall responsibility for the management of incidents and outbreaks of infectious diseases. Leads Public Health response during incidents in line with the Emergency Planning Resilience and Response (EPRR) arrangements as part of the Isle of Man Emergency Response Plan. Strategically develops and maintain effective systems for the surveillance of communicable disease and environmental hazards and uses outputs to inform and influence local and national Public Health actions, policies and strategies. Responsible (with DHSC) for strategic commissioning of vaccination and immunisation programmes and population screening programmes.

Health Improvement: Strategic assessment of the population's health and wellbeing to identify where new policies, strategies and initiatives are needed to improve health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities.

Health Care Public Health: Working with partners across Manx Care and DHSC to assess clinical efficiency, examine commissioning and develop services to improve the overall healthcare experience for residents.

Research Governance and Regulation: Providing advice and guidance on the application process for research projects on the Isle of Man. This includes reviewing and updating legislation to ensure that research governance is within a statutory framework, developing local policies to support appropriate engagement with commercial entities, and maintaining the Isle of Man Research Ethics Committee.

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