A day in the life: CCG and local authority commissioner Lisa Chandler

Lisa Chandler from Wakefield is a public health principle. She works across a CCG and a local authority and is also a member of the Primary Care Respiratory Society. Interview by Benedict Greenwood

 

Q. What’s your morning routine?
A. Sorting out the family and a short 20-minute drive in [to work]. I start at 7:00 or 9:30 depending on what’s in the diary and I finish anytime from 17:00 up to 18:45.

My role is as a public health principal across a CCG and a local authority and my lead areas are respiratory disease, cancer and smoking in pregnancy.

I work two-three days in the CCG building and two-three days in the local authority building, so I leave the car at the place where I’ll be finishing the day to make the walk after work as short as possible.

 

Q. What’s the biggest challenge you’re currently dealing with?
A. Tobacco dependency. We still have a relatively high prevalence locally and recently it’s been increasing.

We’ve got lots of exciting ideas and some great partners, so I think we’ll really be able to make a difference over the next couple of years.

We’re very proud of the work we’ve done to reduce smoking in pregnancy, including the disparity between our richest and poorest communities, and we’d like to replicate that success across the population.

 

Q. What do you most like about your job?
A. I love my job; I really can’t say that enough! I’m very lucky to still be able to spend over 50% of my time concentrating on respiratory disease – not many people have that luxury these days.

I guess the best thing is being able to work with great people on something we are all passionate about and being able to really make a difference to people’s lives and experiences.

 

Q. What is your greatest frustration?
A. Lack of time and lack of ability to implement the changes needed.

We’ve been speaking a lot about the Long-Term Plan recently and the key recommendations are not rocket science. In fact, they’re all things we’ve been talking about for many years.

We’re currently looking at ways to work more closely with our local communities, build on their assets and to include service users in service design, but getting patient input can be really difficult at times.

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