INTERVIEW KEVIN FENTON
The new director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England talks to ukactive’s Steven Ward about the ‘wicked problem’ of physical inactivity, and issues a call to arms
Turning the tide of physical inactivity must be a “central platform of public health efforts”, with partnerships at the heart of driving this agenda
Professor Fenton has over 20 years’ experience in public health medicine “Y‘‘
ou have to recognise the unique space that the readers of Health Club Management occupy,”
professor Kevin Fenton tells me when we meet in his office at Public Health England. “Health club and leisure centre
operators can be the leaders of the movement to promote active lifestyles. No-one else can do that as well as they can. They have the networks needed to make a difference and can be the main force for challenging the public health system locally to take turning the tide of physical inactivity seriously.” The man responsible for improving
the public health of the entire nation – as director of health and wellbeing within Public Health England (PHE) – is instantly disarming but deadly serious. There’s something distinctly different
about a meeting with professor Fenton than any encounter with a civil servant
that I’ve had across Whitehall. He’s on a genuine mission. You get a sense of a man with purpose and intent to cut through the reasons that have prevented progress in the past. “The things I want to know about are what I call the wicked problems – the fundamental causes that hold us back,” he explains.
Man on a mission
“You wouldn’t go to a generalist to fi x your heart – you’d fi nd a cardiac specialist. The same is true in public health,” continues Fenton, who himself is a public health specialist with a reputation that precedes him. This is not a man who has worked his way up the Civil Service ‘greasy pole’, but rather someone who has built a reputation as a global public health leader, taking on some of the greatest challenges in this area across the world (see briefi ng box, p35).
34 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital Having been tempted back to the UK
to take up his post at Public Health England (PHE) – which was established on 1 April 2013 to bring together public health specialists from more than 70 organisations into a single public health service – he has a clean sheet on which to set out his plans to make a difference to the health of the nation. PHE’s mission is to protect and
improve the nation’s health and address inequalities, and this runs to the core of Fenton’s personal passions: “I’m passionate about making a difference to people’s lives. What drives me is understanding the evidence and knowing how to apply it, at scale, in practical ways that allow us to make that difference. That’s what I dedicate myself to. It’s why I’m here.” Put simply, PHE is responsible for
making the public healthier. Within that mammoth brief, Fenton is a key
February 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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