Public Health has responsibility for the co-ordination of four key topic based national public health networks;

• Sexual Health Network
• Mental Health Promotion Network
• The Nutrition Network
• The Physical Activity Network

The former Centre for Health commissioned an evaluation of the networks both to measure the effectiveness of the networks to date, and to shape their potential development in the future. The comprehensive evaluation- completed in March 2009- involved a range of methods including telephone and face to face interviews, surveys, focus groups and desk top research.

Findings

The full findings of the evaluation can be found here. Overall the report concludes that the networks have been successful in achieving their stated outputs and there are very high levels of satisfaction with members being consistently positive about the information provided by the networks.

Once we concluded the research based on this issue our organization can state that we are satisfied with the provided results. The individual all over the United States have welcomed us and offered reliable evaluation of our work. This gives us more power in achieving our goals. We also interviewed the people who were using our services, and they provided us an excellent feedback, 95% of individuals were satisfied with the treatment we provided, which is an excellent score. In the future, we plan to develop this organization even further and helping people with special needs; this will be our number one priority.

Recommendations

The report identified areas for improvement and potential growth with most of the recommendations already being developed or implemented. These include:

a review of the present advisory boards and their terms of reference;

better access to examples of good practice:

greater use of the networks to inform policy development;

a greater engagement in CPD and workforce development.

To download an executive summary of the report, click here

To download a full copy of the report, click here

For further advice or information relating to the evaluation or any other aspect of the networks’ please contact:

Malcolm Ward Network Manager

Catherine Evans Physical Activity Network Co-Ordinator

Rebecca Winslade Nutrition Network Co-Ordinator

Marie Griffiths Mental Health Promotion Network Co-Ordinator

Adam Jones Sexual Health Network Co-Ordinator