Greater Manchester's lead public health director has announced her retirement after more than a decade of service, including through the Covid-19 pandemic. Professor Kate Ardern has been the Director of Public Health for Wigan for 14 years, while also holding the major regional position.
Professor Ardern led the response to Covid-19 in Wigan, while also becoming a figurehead as a public health spokesperson and expert in the region. She has also been a vocal advocate of tackling health inequalities which have long persisted in the North.
Announcing the news on Twitter this week, Professor Ardern said: "On some personal news, as I turned 60 years young a few months ago, my long-planned retirement after 14 very happy and successful years as Director of Public Health for Wigan takes place July 1. I’ve been very honoured to work with such wonderful colleagues and citizens."
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Professor Ardern added that she will be moving to a portfolio career, focusing on progressive public health policy. She continued: "I will be moving to a portfolio career working two to three days per week on progressive public health policy areas I’ve espoused and championed during my Director of Public Health career utilising my expertise, experience and track record of successful delivery."
Professor Ardern attended Manchester High School and read Medicine at Manchester University, before being awarded the RCGP Professor Patrick Byrne Prize for General Practice. She has an MSc in Epidemiology and Health and was awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health 2006 as well as being an honorary Professorship at Salford University.
Along with her honorary position in Salford, she is also a co-researcher on the NIHR-funded evaluation of Greater Manchester’s innovative Communities in Charge of Alcohol programme at the university. The former doctor is, too, a visiting professor at Chester University.
On her retirement news, Professor Ardern told the Manchester Evening News : "It’s been a huge privilege to be part of Team Wigan and Team GM, especially over the last three years witnessing the very best of public service and local government public health in action."
She was working as a junior doctor when she had an 'epiphany' moment, she has said in past interviews. She helped save a man having a heart attack but realised that even though he recovered he had reduced his overall life expectancy.
From there, Professor Ardern changed disciplines and moved to public health, where she could work on preventing illness and promoting health and wellbeing. She joined Wigan Council’s senior management team in 2008 and is its longest-serving member.
One of Professor Ardern's chief schemes has been 'The Wigan Deal' approach to public health, uniting the council closely with the NHS, the voluntary and community sector, and more. According to health charity the King's Fund, Wigan Deal is 'notable for the scale and consistency' in how it has been applied, bringing in deals for communities, adult social care, business, children and young people, and health and wellness.
'Rather than professionals imposing ideas about how people can improve their health, through advice and education about lifestyles', Professor Ardern has said she wanted a policy 'centred around respect for individuals and listening to what is meaningful to them'. Her emphasis has been on creativity, culture, sense of place, sport, and heritage - as health is influenced by all environmental, financial, social factors.
Many public health outcome measures in Wigan kept up through the pandemic and continue to 'buck the trend', performing better than comparable authorities, according to the Local Government Association.
She continued to tell the M.E.N.: "While there is still much work to do, over the last 14 years I’ve seen healthy life expectancy in Wigan both for men and women reach the England average and prevalence of smoking in the borough’s adult population halve, plus the development of a citizen led health champions movement as part of the Wigan Deal.
"The movement numbers 23,000 people who do amazing work on creating dementia-friendly communities, cancer and heart disease prevention, mental well-being and autism friends. Wigan is now a national beacon of good public health practice as the Kings Fund report on the Wigan Deal described and I know my amazing and inspirational colleagues in Wigan Council, the Wigan system and local residents will go from strength to strength.
"It’s been an honour to be part of their journey and I wish them health, happiness and success for the future”
While working during the Covid-19 pandemic, Professor Ardern took inspiration from public health figures from the past. "In everything I’ve done this year, I’ve been inspired by a public health hero of mine, James Niven, who was the medical officer of health for Manchester during the Spanish flu pandemic a century ago," she told the Financial Times, after being named one of the publication's Women of the Year in 2020 .
"He was a man hugely ahead of his time. If you think about what we’re dealing with today — a new virus without vaccine or treatment for most of the year — that was exactly the same situation that Niven and my predecessors were faced with in 1918-19. In his diaries he described how pandemics come in waves, how wave one and wave two behave, and the fact that pandemics will move across age groups and affect them differently.
"He also recognised the importance of contact tracing and, if you could manage it, vaccinating between waves. Much of our knowledge today draws on his observations. In thinking about our pandemic response in Wigan this year, I’ve always had at the back of my mind, “What would Niven have done?” You take some heart from folks like that who have gone before."
Alison McKenzie-Folan, chief executive of Wigan Council, said: “Kate’s dedicated public service here in Wigan Borough over the last 14 years has had an immense impact on the lives of our residents and our public health outcomes.
“A key voice in public health, in recent years Kate’s leadership and expertise has guided our borough’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She will be incredibly missed by us all Wigan Council, and we wish her all the best for a long and happy retirement.”
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