"I'm motivated by helping people" - My work as a Health Protection Practitioner

Lisa Kenney is a Senior Health Protection Practitioner, working in our South East team at UKHSA. She tells us more about her career journey, and what she enjoys most about her work.

How long have you been with UKHSA and what is it like to work as part of the team in the South East?

I joined back in March 2019, when the organisation was known as Public Health England. Fortunately, I'd been in the role for a year before the pandemic hit, so I had a good understanding of the job and what the work entailed. I enjoy working in the South East and with the team - it’s a really interesting corner of the country and offers plenty of variety in terms of the diseases and incidents we work on.

In the South East, we have a high proportion of care homes, detention centres and ports, meaning any disease outbreaks can have additional complexities, so being able to work as part of a team is vital in managing incidents and protecting people's health. The team is so friendly and supportive and my colleagues have a great sense of humour; which always brightens the day!

What made you want to go into Health Protection?

I'm motivated by helping people. I started my career as a nurse on a surgical ward, then retrained as a midwife, helping women and their families navigate pregnancy, birth and early parenting.

As a midwife, one aspect I thoroughly enjoyed was educating and supporting women in the choices available to them throughout pregnancy. Many principles that underpin the roles of nurses and midwives relate to public health, so when the opportunity arose, I was keen to move into that area, specifically health protection. As a Health Protection Practitioner, I'm able to use skills and experience gained throughout my career to help keep people safe, protecting families and communities from the impact of infectious diseases and environmental hazards.

What sets health protection apart from other areas of healthcare?

When you're working on the clinical frontline, you're dealing directly with the unwell person; treating their symptoms and helping them recover. But in Health Protection, our focus is on the wider population - working to keep them safe and prevent disease. We advise people who are currently well but may have been exposed to an infectious disease or threat and have a risk of developing symptoms or spreading infection to others.

For the work we do, we need to be forward-thinking rather than reactive asking questions like; Who has an infectious person been in contact with? Is there a contaminated food product causing food-borne disease? How can we stop the spread of infection and reduce the risk of more people becoming unwell? In Health Protection, we're always thinking of the wider population and trying to reduce the risk of exposure to an infectious source and onward transmission.

What skills or qualities are important for working in Health Protection?

Some of the key skills you'd need for this type of work are good organisation, flexibility and being a good communicator. At any one time, I may be managing several different cases of infectious diseases, each with high volumes of close contacts that require follow-up, so organisation is key. I’m a big fan of spreadsheets - particularly if they’re colour-coded!

No two days are the same in this job, so I need to be able to prioritise my workload depending on what notification comes in. Because we cover such a large geographic area and population, a lot of our work is done over the phone. Therefore, I have to be able to communicate clearly with people, discussing difficult topics and giving advice without being able to see the usual face-to-face cues.

As a nurse and midwife, I did a lot of teaching on practical skills, like how to look after a wound post-operatively, how to manage pain in labour, how to feed a baby; and the list goes on! Teaching is a valuable transferable skill, and particularly useful in health protection. In my work, I may need to educate a member of the public on how a certain infection is spread or how to undertake accurate contact tracing, and I also need my teaching skills so I can train new team members or share learning within my team.