Gary Rickwood, Senior Public Health Manager Wirral Council.

Gary started his career making Kit-Kats for Rowntrees in York, before training and working as a Psychiatric Nurse in London. In 1988 he moved to Wirral and secured a post working in a voluntary sector drug service. This choice was influenced by a desire to broaden his experience by working outside of the NHS. Gary stayed working in the voluntary sector for 15 years, managing drug services in Wirral and Sefton, before crossing to the other side and taking on a commissioning managers role with Wirral Drug and Alcohol Action Team in 2003.

He stayed working as part of the team during a period when Wirral was widely recognised as providing high performing Drug and, in later years, Alcohol Treatment programmes.

Following the disbanding of the National Treatment Agency in 2010, Wirral DAAT was merged into Wirral’s Public Health team, and Gary took on a role as a Public Health senior manager. Since then the Drug and Alcohol Programme has been delivered as part of the Public Health agenda and the Gary has been involved in the programme of work aimed at continuing to deliver high quality and effective services for drug and alcohol users, while also strengthening the prevention work, reducing health inequalities and supporting the Wirral service to achieve much greater connectedness and integration with the wider health and social care system.

Gary’s work has brought him into contact with the LJMU team for over 20 years.

Nikhil Misra, Consultant General and Trauma Surgeon, Aintree University Hospital.

Nikhil Misra is a Consultant General and Trauma Surgeon, based at the Major Trauma Centre at Aintree University Hospital. A specialist Surgeon in emergency and trauma surgery, originally from the city of Liverpool, and trained in Bristol and Cambridge. Member of the Faculty of Education of the Royal College of Surgeons, teaching on the internationally renowned Royal College trauma surgery course, with multiple academic presentations at international and national scientific conferences in the field of major trauma care.

Sue Clarke, Detective Chief Superintendent, Lancashire Constabulary.

Detective Chief Superintendent Sue Clarke joined Lancashire Constabulary in 1990. She has worked in a number of roles both in uniform and CID. Sue was a divisional Detective Inspective at Blackpool where she set up the first dedicated rape team in the force. Operation Aquamarine featured in the Stern Review on rape as an example of a multi-agency approach to the investigation of rape and serious sexual assault. Sue has worked alongside colleagues to develop and influence the policing of prostitution nationally. She is a police advisor on the national Ugly Mugs scheme, an early warning scheme used by sex workers to report violent and sexual offences.

In 2012 she joined the Public Protection Unit as a Detective Chief Inspector where she led on domestic abuse; honour based violence and forced marriage. Her work contributed to the excellent HMIC inspection on domestic abuse which Lancashire received. Sue has sat on a number of national advisory groups including the Domestic Abuse group and the ACPO Child Death Investigation group. Sue previously undertook the role of Head of Public Protection for Lancashire and in that role was lead for Lancashire on CSE, human trafficking, domestic abuse and honour based abuse, Modern Day slavery and Exploitation.

Sue was promoted Detective Chief Superintendent Head of CID for Lancashire in June 2016. She now leads for the force on Adverse Childhood Experiences/ Trauma Informed care and Strategic Safeguarding partnerships. She is Head of the Lancashire Violence Unit.
  Download Sue's Presentation

Kate Shethwood, Public Health Registrar, Health Education North West.

Kate Shethwood is a Public Health Registrar based in the Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit. Kate begun her career in early years in Stockport, before managing the Greater Manchester Safeguarding Partnership, bringing together statutory and voluntary sector partners to improve safeguarding of children and young people. She later became Policy Lead for the Association of Directors of Children's Services including on health, care and additional needs, which led to a decision to build on the commitment to improving the lives of people, particularly children and the most vulnerable, through formal public health training.

She completed her Masters in Birmingham whilst working in Stoke on Trent Council and has since returned to Greater Manchester, with previous placement in Salford as sexual health commissioner and supporting development of the action plan for tackling drug and alcohol harm.
  Download Kate's Presentation

Mark Wiggins, Superintendent, Merseyside Police.

Mark joined Merseyside Police in 1997 and served in uniformed roles on patrol, neighbourhood policing teams and in a plain clothes crime team. He was promoted to Sergeant in 2001 where he worked in every area of Knowsley mainly in emergency response teams and neighbourhood community policing. Following further promotion to Inspector he was an emergency response critical incident manager before taking over as the neighbourhood community Inspector for Kirkby. He also carried out the role of Chief Inspector Operations and latterly Chief Inspector Partnerships.

In September 2008 he moved to Liverpool to be the Chief Inspector Operations at a time when gang and gun crime were a particular challenge in the north of the city and as well as leading the emergency response, community teams and the proactive team he was the area lead for dealing with gun related gang crime.

In January 2012, he was promoted to Superintendent in charge of Liverpool North which included the city centre. Following the merger of Liverpool North and Liverpool South areas he moved to take on the same role but within the South. For 12 months he was the area commander for the whole of Liverpool before Merseyside police commenced a functional model of policing where he remained in charge of community and targeted policing. Since June 2019 he has been the head of Merseyside's Violence Reduction Partnership.
  Download Mark's Presentation

Cath Lewis, Researcher, Public Health Institute.

Cath is a researcher at the Public Health Institute. She has a background in nursing, and now works on a wide variety of projects for Champs Public Health Collaborative and Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M) Directors of Public Health. She has worked on several Randomised Controlled Trials, including a national trial of chest pain units within Accident and Emergency Departments, and a trial looking at psychological adjustment to breast cancer. Her projects have included looking at gambling across the Liverpool City Region, and more recently, projects looking at self-harm in children and young people, and an evaluation of community suicide prevention training.

Jennifer Germain, TIIG Project lead, Public Health Institute.

Jennifer is the project lead for the Trauma and Injury Intelligence Group (TIIG), managing intentional and unintentional injury and violence data. Jennifer has also worked on a number of evaluations including weight loss programs, an end of life care pathway and the roles of breast care nurses and domiciliary community matrons. Most recently Jennifer has been leading the development of a data hub to support the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership.

Jane Webster, Data Quality Engagement, Public Health Institute.

Jane has been with the Public Health Institute since April 2013, most recently as Data Quality Engagement Lead. One of her key objectives is to help ensure the completeness of the TIIG data is maintained and were necessary improved upon. Jane works closely with emergency departments across the North West of England.
  Download Jennifer and Jane's Presentation

Professor John Ashton, Former Regional Director of Public Health.

Professor John Ashton CBE is a former a lecturer and professor of public health at Southampton/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine /and the University of Liverpool Medical School. He was Regional Director of Public Health/Regional Medical Officer for the North West of England for 13 years and Director of Public Health/County Medical Officer for 6 years. He was one of the founders of the WHO Healthy Cities Project, established the first UK Public Health Observatory, the first large scale syringe exchange programme and is known internationally for his work on Health Advocacy.

Panel discussion and questions.