Growing difficulties in public health workforce identification and planning

The diversity and spread of the public health workforce and related workforces make for difficulties in enumeration and planning.

An important aspect of workforce planning requires establishing how many people actually work in public health and what they do within an increasingly diverse sector. Currently there is clarity about specialists and consultants but it may not be the case for the remainder of the public health workforce. Current reforms indicate that public health workers will be employed by a wider range of employers which may further fragment the workforce and lead to confusion concerning specific job titles and roles. Any unified system of counting and classification would have to take into account local variations and the different organizational settings in which public health workers, and particularly practitioners, operate. Such a system would have to develop over time and would initially generate costs. The idea closely relates to what kind of education and training arrangements, including continuing professional development, may have to be effected to maintain quality and relevance in public health practice. The multiplicity of employers may initially lead to duplication and inconsistencies in training platforms in the absence of generally agreed understandings of job roles. Local and unitary authorities may not have the expertise currently in place to to do this. Funding levels to support these arrangements, particularly if local authorities use ring-fenced grants, could mean differential distributions of support.

Sources or references

• ‘Public Health Benchmarking Tool 2008: a user’s guide’
• Workforce Planning for Public Health FPH Newsletter Dec 2008
• Maximizing the contribution of the public health workforce: the English experience: Bulletin of the World Health Organization: (Dec 2007) V.85 (12) also contains useful references on this idea

Some of the information in this section is provided by stakeholders and expert groups, and does not necessarily represent the views of the CfWI.