Improving health and reducing health inequalities in our society: that’s the overarching objective of public health. In these respects, decades of progress in the UK have now stalled, and even gone backwards in some areas.  

At the same time, our public health systems have been defunded and fragmented, and we face a growing workforce crisis. We do not have enough public health consultants, including academics, and yet many prospective registrars and consultants are struggling to find jobs. Even for those in post, many have seen their pay eroded, jobs threatened and independence compromised, or have been denied national terms and conditions.   

Amid the abolition of NHS England and cuts to integrated care boards, our colleagues there are facing uncertainty and potential redundancy. Even as the UK’s governments aim to shift health services to prevention, healthcare public health is threatened by the substitution of consultants by non-specialists, and the lack of posts and training opportunities. Indeed, abolishing NHS England poses a significant threat to training in healthcare public health. 

The only way we will solve these crises is collectively, by coming together as a profession alongside our colleagues and communities. As the trade union and professional association for public health doctors, the BMA is one of the key structures for doing this. Already, through our campaigning we have begun restoring pay across the UK, achieved a significant increase in the public health grant, and reached record membership levels. 

This year we launched our Rebuilding public health: Restoring the foundations of prevention report, which set out the situation and our recommendations for tackling it, including measuring and growing prevention spending, ending pay disparities in public health, and growing the specialist workforce, including in healthcare public health. 

‘Rebuilding public health’ is also the theme of the 2026 public health medicine conference, at BMA House on 19 March. This is our annual grassroots event where we can come together as a profession and set the policy and campaigning direction of the BMA. As a member, it is your chance to propose and change BMA policy – if you have any ideas or thoughts on what we need to change or start doing, then please email us.  

The deadline for conference motions is Monday 2 February, and the agenda committee is hosting a motion writing workshop on Tuesday 27 January at 12–2pm, for those wanting help drafting and crafting their motions and proposals. 

At the conference you can hear from and pose questions to BMA leaders, see expert keynote speakers, network with colleagues, and discuss our current challenges.  

To successfully rebuild public health, however, we will also need to do things very differently in future. In our recent conferences, under fantastic leadership by my predecessors Ishani Kar-Purkayastha and Sushma Acquilla, we’ve explored what that might look like – including advocacy, community wealth building, futures thinking, and combatting climate change. 

Our conference will further build on that with workshops on activism, equality and global health, and for the first time, it will feature an open debate section where we will discuss and vote on key questions for the profession. 

Ahead of this, we will also hold our annual Sandy Macara lecture on 26 February. To complement our conference, this will be locally focused, held in Newcastle and hosted by BMA North East regional council. It will be open to all BMA members and colleagues from other sectors in the region as well as public health specialists from across the UK, online and in person. If you are interested in attending, you can register by emailing us. 

Now is the time to rebuild public health across the UK for the better, and resume improving the health and equity of our communities and the world we live in. Join us at the public health medicine conference 2026 to start this vital task. 

Deiniol Jones (pictured above) is chair of the BMA public health medicine conference 

Chloë Rogers is deputy chair of the BMA public health medicine conference