Cherry Jones, 53, is acting Director of Public Health with Swindon Borough Council. She is married with two grown-up children and lives in North Swindon

THE duties of Cherry Jones and her team range from anti-smoking drives to encouraging exercise.

They’ve lately helped to highlight the toxic horrors of illegal tobacco and promote a five-year plan for dementia care.

The department would also have a role to play if the unthinkable happened and Ebola somehow made its way here.

Cherry said: “Obviously we would link with Public Health England centres to work around protecting the health of the population.

“There are a number of plans in place, ready for any outbreak, should it occur.”

Such matters are far removed from the day-to-day work of the team, though.

“Ultimately,” Cherry said, “we want people to live long, healthy and fulfilling lives, and you could say that’s what Public Health is about – improving the health of the population.

“For example, it’s preventing long-term conditions such a heart disease, diabetes, cancer, to improve people’s outcomes, so they have long lives with more healthy years.

“The cost of a longterm condition is to the individual and the individual’s family and friends, as well as the public purse. The majority of us will know people who have had cancer or have got some other long-term condition such as heart disease, and will have seen the devastation it can cause in families.

“A lot of people will think of ‘promotion’ in terms of posters and campaigns and leaflets, but when we talk of promotion from a Public Health perspective it’s around the broader definition – such as ensuring you’re able to walk and cycle, and promoting communities where there’s green space. It’s making the healthier option the easier option.”

Cherry is one of four siblings. Her father was a consultant opthalmologist and her mother an operating theatre nurse. The family moved from Oxford, Cherry’s birthplace, to Newcastle when she was an infant.

On leaving school Cherry briefly trained in quantity surveying before becoming a nurse. After four years she took a degree with the aim of advancing into nursing management.

She said: “I felt that would give me added skills and knowledge to pursue a career in nursing. I did business studies and thoroughly enjoyed it. As part of that course I continued to nurse whilst I was studying, during the holidays.

“After the three years of study I moved south and decided that I’d get some work experience within more of a business environment, thinking it might benefit me going forward to have that broader view of management. In fact I ended up staying with the company for 17 years.”

The company was Cloverleaf in Swindon, which made household goods, and Cherry became a senior executive. In 2003 Cloverleaf was taken over by a firm from the North East.

“I had the opportunity to relocate to the North East, but given that my children were well established and enjoying life in Swindon I didn’t take up that offer. I took some time out to rethink what I wanted to do with my future.

“In early 2004 I successfully completed the Return to Practice nursing course at the Great Western Hospital. I thoroughly enjoyed getting back into the health arena.”

Then came a new twist to her career, in part due to her local newspaper.

“I just happened by chance to be looking through the Evening Advertiser, as it was at that time, and saw the job of public health co-ordinator in the public health department at the NHS Primary Care Trust.

“The reason it caught my eye was because of the health aspect of it, but also I felt it would enable me to use my marketing skills.

“I applied for the job and was fortunate enough to get it.”

Cherry rose through the ranks and has been in her current role since March of last year.

She aims not just to promote health but also to take account of health inequalities; people in some parts of the borough live years longer than those in others.

“For some people in our community,” she said, “it’s not always as straightforward or easy to take some of those healthier choices around healthy eating and stopping smoking and physical activity. It’s another challenge for us. For some people life’s a struggle.

“The way we endeavour to tackle that is to ensure that some of the opportunities for people to, for example, stop smoking are accessible and made available to them, and that people are able to hear those messages.

“Often the people who pick up the health messages are the worried well – and rightly so – but we’ve also got to make sure we support the harder-to-reach people who are less likely to be receptive to some of the messages.”

Cherry insists it’s never too late for anybody to improve their health, whether by stopping smoking, grilling food instead of frying it, reducing portion sizes, walking, gardening or making other lifestyle alterations.

“There are quite a few small changes people could make that would have a significant impact.”

Successes she’s delighted by include the high take-up of Human Papilloma Virus vaccination in the borough, which protects against cervical cancer, and warding off the sudden increase in measles cases that affected many other parts of the country last year. One of the major pleasures of her job is learning about people helped by the work of her team.

“I constantly hear of really motivating stories from people who have made some lifestyle changes, whether that be stopping smoking, being more physically active or losing weight, where you can actually see or hear in their enthusiasm and voice that it has made such a significant change for them.

“That could be from a smoker who’s feeling better and fitter and has saved a couple of grand a year, through to somebody who has become more physically active and able to get about more.

“I’m very privileged to see some of those moments in our community.”