Population Health Fellowship

Job details

Salary: NHS England will make a contribution towards the Fellow’s costs and the substantive employer will remain responsible for the amount that individuals will be paid while participating in the fellowship. For the current cohort, NHS England provides approximately £30,000 per Fellow to support their 0.4 Full-Time Equivalent on the fellowship (i.e. 2 days).

Employer: NHS England

Location: Various, Somerset,

Contract type: Fixed term contract

Working pattern: Part time

Closing date: 24 July 2025 11:59 pm

About the job

Key information

Population health is an approach aimed at improving the health of an entire population. It is about improving the physical and mental health outcomes and wellbeing of people, whilst reducing health inequalities within and across a defined population. It includes action to reduce the occurrence of ill-health, including addressing wider determinants of health, and requires working with communities and partner agencies.

The need for more population health is increasingly reiterated in policy and research, which is why healthcare systems are responsible for optimising outcomes and reducing health inequalities at the population level.

This is an opportunity for health and care professionals interested in population health and passionate about health inequalities. The fellowship targets early to mid-career professionals providing NHS or public services relevant to population health (AfC band 6 and above, or equivalent; dentists-in-training; doctors-in-training post-FY2 and their SAS equivalent). The aim of the fellowship is to develop a growing network of professionals from a non-population health background with population health skills to benefit place-based healthcare systems across England.

It is a one-year part-time programme at two days a week alongside your substantive post, which starts on Wednesday 1st October 2025. Fellows will work on a supervised population health project which is focused on health inequalities and will be supported by a taught programme.

Applications are invited for a Fellowship in Population Health, funded by NHS England, and based in Somerset hosted by the Public Health teams commencing the programme on 1st October 2025:-

The topic of the Somerset 2025 Fellowship is oral health. The project will provide a data-based foundation for the Oral Health Strategy for Somerset System and progress interventions to support oral health in specific Somerset population groups. The fellow will be working to implement the Oral Health Strategy Mapping Tool for the Somerset population. This is derived from the NHSE/I Assessments completed in 2021, SW Health Needs Assessment 2021 and Somerset Appendix.

There is scope within the fellowship to tailor to the interests of the fellow. We would also anticipate the fellow being involved with one or more interventions to support oral health. Two existing priority areas are:

Older adults: With a significant and growing older population in Somerset, there is an identified need to support work on dental care services for older people especially those with dementia. This would be a new project area but would be expected to dovetail with existing work in the area on infection control in care homes and use data from the Dental Survey for Care Homes which is currently being undertaken.
Children. We have an existing project to facilitate supervised tooth-brushing for children aged 3-5 which has been focussed on those in CORE20 areas. With additional resource now available we would like to consider additional evidence-based population segments. We are also keen to explore analyses using local data to understand more fully inequalities and areas with poorer child hospital based dental extractions via data held in primary care and the fellow would be involved in information governance processes to access and drive analysis of this data.

Reimbursement of your salary element of the participation in the fellowship will be provided to your substantive employer and you must discuss this opportunity with your line manager and educational supervisor (if applicable) of your intentions to apply.

This fellowship was previously nationally delivered but this year is being delivered regionally. For further information about the role and how to apply please visit the South West School of Public Health website

The website includes details on how to apply, the eligibility criteria and important documents such as the Rough Guide and FAQ Guide. If you have any queries after visiting the website or require the application form sent to you in a word document, please email england.publichealth.sw@nhs.net.

Please e-mail your completed application form and CV to orla.dunn@somerset.gov.uk

Closing Date for applications: – Thursday 24th July. Interviews will be 6th August pm on Teams.