New appointments in Public Health Directorate

Grace Norman, Deputy Director of Public Health, and Colum Durkan, Consultant in Public Health will be commencing their roles from next month.

Grace Norman

Grace read psychology at the University of Sussex, before working for the NHS for five years, where she undertook a range of nursing workforce and operational projects. Working in a hospital led her to a keen interest in prevention and focusing on promoting and improving health more holistically. Grace accepted a place at the London School of Hygiene and Tropic Medicine to achieve a Masters in Public Health, after which she joined the  Hertfordshire Public Health team. This led Grace to Public Health speciality training, where, over the course of five years, she was embedded in teams in local authorities, Public Health England and the NHS to refine her public health knowledge and skills working at a strategic level, improving the health of the populations she has served.

Since September 2021, Grace has been working as interim Consultant in Public Health in Jersey, leading on healthcare public health and will be transitioning into the role of Deputy Director of Public Health role, taking responsibility for health protection health improvement and implementing the forthcoming Public Health  Strategy.

Colum Durkan

Colum studied dentistry at King’s College London and on qualification worked as a dentist in a variety of clinical roles. His time in clinical practice gave him an insight into the scale of health inequalities and the challenges involved in addressing them. This led him to speciality training in Dental Public Health, which he undertook in the Midlands. During training, he attained a Masters in Public Health at the University of Nottingham and worked with the NHS, Public Health England and local authorities on a range of strategic projects. On completion of training, he transitioned to a locum consultant post in the NHS  Midlands Healthcare Public Health team, from which he joins the  Government of Jersey. His focus in Jersey will be on Healthcare Public  Health and Health Intelligence when he starts in early April.

Director of Public Health, Professor Peter Bradley, said: “I’m delighted to be welcoming Grace and Colum into the Public Health Directorate. Their combined wealth of experience will be a huge asset to the Government of Jersey as we deliver essential work to improve the health outcomes to Islanders.

“The last 6 months have been an extremely exciting time for our Public Health Directorate as we have expanded the team of public health professionals to drive forward the vital work of public health in Jersey.”