ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the development of the public health workforce, including the progress from a medically dominated to a multidisciplinary specialist profession. It describes the emergence of competency-based training and the creation of the voluntary register. A number of different initiatives and influences have converged to bring about fundamental changes to public health across the United Kingdom, leading to a broader-based professional and regulated workforce. The chapter outlines how and why this has happened and reflects on the implications of the unique opportunity to take an integrated strategic approach to development of the whole of the public health workforce and not just specific sectors within it. It also focuses on the some key areas of public health practice which were to form the basis for professional standards. The key areas also formed the basis for the framework for retrospective portfolio assessment of competence of aspiring specialists.
