In 2003, Gateshead Primary Care Trust, England established a virtual Centre for Enabling Health Improvement (CEHI). The aims included support for the wider public health workforce and development of resources for health to enable allied professionals to improve the health of the people of Gateshead. In 2004, the CEHI steering group held a launch to provide a networking opportunity for staff.

Participatory appraisal methods informed the workshops for the launch that aimed to throw light on the concerns of the public health workforce in their day-to-day working lives. Three participatory workshops were planned: a mapping workshop, a workshop about your working week and the timeline workshop. These aimed to find out from the 89 delegates what was special about their work, what the problems were and what were the solutions. The adoption of participatory methods underpinned one of CEHI’s strategic goals namely, that the wider public health workforce would contribute to planning and shaping CEHI’s future plans.

The results illustrated the delegates’ insight about special features of their work, for instance: valuing opportunities for multi-disciplinary working; issues such as inequalities in accessing services and solutions such as the provision of better integration of teams.

The launch shaped a new approach to the delivery of public health in Gateshead by acknowledging and valuing the contribution of its public health workforce. The participatory workshops provided a positive experience for the delegates by contributing to the collection of information that formed the basis for future activities such as the organisation of networking events on current health topics including health needs assessment and lifestyle issues.