Professor John Frank trained in Medicine and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, in Family Medicine at McMaster University, and in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has been a Professor (now Emeritus) at the University of Toronto, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, since 1983; founding Director of Research at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto from 1991 to 1997; and inaugural Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Institute of Population and Public Health (2000-2008).

In July 2008, John became Director of a new Edinburgh-based unit, funded by the Medical Research Council and the Scottish Chief Scientist Office: the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy. The collaboration seeks to develop and robustly test novel public health policies and programmes to equitably improve health status in Scotland, through the convening and ongoing support of researcher/research-user consortia.


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Andrew Fraser is Director of Public Health Science with NHS Health Scotland. He was Director of Public Health in NHS Highland from 1994-1997, then Deputy Chief Medical Officer in the Health Department of the Scottish Office, then Scottish Executive from 1997-2003. He was responsible for advice on Public Health Policy, taking a particular interest in health protection matters, alcohol related harm, public health laws and, increasingly, health inequalities and the health of marginalised groups.

From 2003-2012, Andrew worked in the Scottish Prison Service as Director of Health and Care, also advising the government and World Health Organization on prison related health matters, national drugs and alcohol policy. His focus is on ways to narrow health inequalities in Scotland.

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Presentation: Towards a fairer, healthier Scotland

Despite public health advancements in recent years, Scotland still faces significant challenges to improve the health of the nation. Legal curbs such as the smoking ban have yielded encouraging results; however, there still remains a demanding need to increase life expectancies and reduce health inequalities. Which policies and strategies will prove to deliver the most successful outcomes?

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Anne Ludbrook is Theme Leader for the Health Behaviours and Inequalities theme. She is a graduate of the University of York, where she also worked as a research fellow for three years. Following an appointment as Economic Adviser at Grampian Health Board, she joined HERU in 1983. Since then, she has been involved in a range of research activities and in consultancy work.

Anne's current research interests are focused around the use of economics in health improvement, with a particular interest in alcohol, obesity and smoking. Completed work includes a review of the cost-effectiveness of interventions for alcohol misuse, the health and economic impacts of smoking in public places and evaluations of interventions to promote breastfeeding and to improve men's health.

Presentation: Reducing health inequalities

An Audit Scotland report, Health inequalities in Scotland, acknowledges that although there have been improvements over the last 50 years in population health, there are still significant health gaps between rich and poor. It is a priority of the Scottish Government to address these inequalities, but what will be the key drivers to improvement?

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Dr Linda de Caestecker is Director of Public Health in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the largest health board in Scotland and the area with the highest levels of disadvantage and poor health. Linda holds a joint DPH post with Glasgow City Council, acknowledging the key role of local authorities in improving public health. Linda has been in post for six years, having previously been the Head of the Maternal and Child Unit at the (then) Scottish Executive and prior to this a consultant in public health with a special interest in child health.

As DPH Linda has retained her interest in child health and has continued to advocate for the needs of children through her work on child poverty, parenting support, child health surveillance and clinical services review. She sits on a number of national groups including the Children and Young People's Health Support Group and the Child Poverty Advisory Group. She was recently one of three members of the Commission on Women Offenders that made recommendations to the Scottish Government about improved support for women to prevent reoffending.

Presentation: Working in partnerships to meet public health challenges

There is little doubt that working in partnership can improve health outcomes and none more so than in the public health arena. Collaborative partnership working can aid early intervention, preventive measures, long-term treatments and condition management.



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Ken has been a consultant general surgeon in Aberdeen for 20 years and a director of Aberdeen Surgical Ltd for 7 years. Graduating from Edinburgh University in 1982 he trained in Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Aberdeen. He was awarded the Cuthbertson prize for his MD thesis and the inaugural James IV Professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Ken has been involved in teaching, research and clinical surgery in the UK, Europe and Asia and has 150 peer reviewed publications. He is currently the chairman of general surgery in Aberdeen.

In 2007 Ken established Aberdeen Surgical ltd, an independent surgical company providing surgical services to both the public and private sector. Recently he has been working with the oil and gas industry to improve health in the work force, in particular managing obesity.

Presentation: A New Paradigm can result in a better service for patients with inguinal herniae

Inguinal hernias are one of the commonest conditions seen by general surgeons and as such represent a large proportion of patients on any waiting list. By using a combination of improved productivity, technical developments and staff enthusiasm we have demonstrated that we can provide a service with increased through-put and improved cost efficiency without compromising on clinical outcome or patient satisfaction.

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Lorna Forde graduated in zoology at the University of Glasgow, followed by postgraduate qualifications in dietetics, sports nutrition and a Master's degree in primary care. Since 2007 she has been the service lead of the award-winning, multidisciplinary Glasgow and Clyde Weight Management Service, which supports prevention of overweight and obesity through to the pharmacological and surgical treatment of severe and complex obesity in NHSGGC. She is a member of the Adult, Adolescent and Childhood Obesity NHSGGC steering group and is involved at a national level as a member of the SIGN 115 working group and with the Severe and Complex Obesity Treatment Service (SCOTS). She also works in a consultative basis with health boards and commissioning groups across the UK in developing local obesity services based on the GCWMS programme. A major achievement to date is to encourage and disseminate research by allied health professionals to add to the evidence base in obesity treatment.

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The Glasgow and Clyde Weight Management Service (GCWMS) is an award-winning service, receiving the National Obesity Forum/Weight Watchers Research Award in 2011, the NHS Diamond Healthy Lifestyle Award in 2008, and the National Obesity Forum Best Practice Award for excellence in weight management in 2006. The service is multidisciplinary, comprising dieticians, psychologists, physiotherapists, technical instructors and administrative support.


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Dr Emily Jefferson joined the University of Dundee as the eHealth Development Programme Manager in October 2012. Emily read biochemistry at the University of St Andrews before attaining a PhD in the more computational field of bioinformatics at the University of Dundee. After a post-doctorate in bioinformatics, Emily left academia to work in the banking sector for a large software company that wrote credit and market risk trading systems. She was promoted from Project Consultant to a Project Director, managing the delivery and development of multimillion pound software systems to several international banks.

Emily then took a career break to solo cycle from New Zealand to the UK over one year. Emily chose to return to work in an area she feels passionate about. She wishes to combine an understanding of biological research and academia with commercial IT project management and development experience and apply these skills to the field of health informatics.

The Health Informatics Centre (HIC) has received significant university and external investment and will expand to establish Dundee as one the UK's leading institutes in health, social and biomedical informatics. The HIC Service will harness electronic health records in a bid to improve patient care and public health. Emily has responsibility for the overall management, technical direction and leadership for the team of software developers and data analysts within HIC and those co-located within specific research groups. She has undertaken and lead a full strategic review of the current processes and technologies for accessing data within HIC and is developing and implementing streamlined and industry-leading technical systems and processes to support a range of activities and environments.

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A consortium of six academic partners and NHS Scotland has recently been successful in becoming one of four, UK wide Farr Institutes of Health Informatics Research. The Medical Research Council (MRC) and 9 other funding bodies have recognised the UK's exceptional data resources and long tradition of excellence in eHealth informatics research, and the potential to rapidly translate academic strengths into benefits for patients and population health, locally, nationally and globally. The University of Dundee is the lead of the Scottish consortium and co-ordinator of the UK Network. The Farr Institute will act as a high profile interface between academia, the public, practice, policy and industry.


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Following his graduation from law school in 2005, Lee Connolly began a successful career in the telecommunications industry that saw him hold various senior management positions, culminating with his appointment as a director. Keen to build on this success and diversify into different areas of technology, Lee formed YourTel Communications Ltd.

In addition to providing business communications solutions, Lee held a strong desire for YourTel to be instrumental in the design and creation of bespoke solutions that would assist in tracking, reporting and demonstrating specific health solutions out in the field. YourTel has developed a bespoke solution for Active Lifestyles, Manchester's lead physical activity provider. Briefly, the solution was to implement a member engagement and monitoring tool. This allows Active Lifestyles to quantify the overall success of their campaigns by monitoring the frequency of attendance of their members. It has links to intelligence data, which allows the team to map relevant activities to specific needs of the different communities within the city. This provides the team with a wealth of information to effectively communicate with its member base, whilst the tracking element will prove the changes in the members' lifestyles choices and behaviour.


Presentation: How technology can be used to quantify the effectiveness of public health campaigns and assist organisations meet public health challenges



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Sheila Duffy became Chief Executive of ASH Scotland in January 2008. She has been Chair of the Scottish Coalition on Tobacco (SCOT) since 2004 and represents ASH Scotland on the government's Ministerial Working Group on Tobacco Control. She also represents ASH Scotland on networks such as the World Health Organization's Framework Convention Alliance and the Global Smoke-free Partnership.

Prior to becoming Chief Executive, Sheila was Director of Information and Communications at ASH Scotland from 2003. In this role she was responsible for developing and communicating the evidence in favour of smoke-free public places in Scotland and influencing the development of the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act of 2005, which ended smoking in most enclosed public places.

Strategically, ASH Scotland is working towards creating a generation free from tobacco, and therefore taking action to prevent youth uptake of tobacco and to tackle the inequalities that tobacco causes.


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Mary Taylor has worked in the housing sector in Scotland for over 30 years, variously as a practitioner, manager, researcher and teacher, and policy adviser. She has long been involved with supporting independent living, initially helping older people into sheltered housing, later writing guides and advising housing practitioners on the various kinds of need for housing related support for vulnerable adults. At Stirling University she worked with a multidisciplinary team of JIT practitioners on a project to promote better outcomes for users around Essential Connections between housing, health and social services and on Reshaping Care projects.

Mary has worked as CEO of SFHA since July 2010, representing and supporting housing associations in Scotland, many of whom provide housing and support for older people and older vulnerable adults. She is a Fellow the Chartered Institute of Housing and recently awarded Fellowship of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.



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Professor James Ferguson was born in Aberdeen and educated at Robert Gordon's College and Aberdeen University, graduating in Medicine in 1983. His basic surgical training was undertaken in Aberdeen, before progressing to Accident and Emergency Registrar training in Manchester and as a Senior Registrar in Aberdeen. In 1994, he was appointed by NHS Grampian as Consultant in Accident and Emergency Medicine, with a specialist interest in Paediatric Accident and Emergency.

James is a Visiting Professor to the Robert Gordon University and a Reader in Emergency Medicine with Aberdeen University. He is retained by Eon Productions as a medical advisor.

In 2006, James was seconded on a half time basis as National Clinical Lead to the newly established Scottish Centre for TeleHealth (SCT). Currently, the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare (SCTT) is implementing a range of national programmes.



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