Designed to help create excellence in public health practice and improve the health of the people who live and work in Greater Manchester.

In existence for just over a year, the unit has already become firmly established among public health institutions across the North West. Unit Lead, Dr Soraya Meah, said, ‘We believe public health is everyone’s business and we work in partnership with NHS commissioners, Local Authorities, Universities, service providers and local communities to address issues about health, policy, practice and services.’

The website has sections on partners, how to commission work from the unit, an extensive links section, as well as briefing papers on how to conduct evaluations and documents produced by the unit on topics such as the evaluation of health trainers across Greater Manchester and the on-going drug-related deaths project.
The GM Public Health Practice Unit was established by the Greater Manchester Association of Primary Care Trusts in November 2007, to ensure that public health knowledge and skills are used to underpin decisions that impact on the health and lives of the people of Greater Manchester.

The GM Public Health Practice Unit offers generic skills: in research, critical appraisal, systematic reviews, knowledge management, epidemiology, health economics, systems and project management and service redesign, with a delivery plan based on the principles of lean thinking. The unit has a core team of seven people, supplemented by additional expertise tailored to meet the requirements of our work programme.