Kate attended Manchester High School and read Medicine at Manchester University. She was awarded the RCGP Professor Patrick Byrne Prize for General Practice. Kate has an MSc in Epidemiology and Health and Membership of the Faculty of Public Health. She was awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health 2006. Kate is an Honorary Professorship at Salford University where she is a co-researcher on the NIHR funded evaluation of Greater Manchester’s innovative Communities in Charge of Alcohol programme. Kate is also a Visiting Professor at Chester University. Kate is Lead Director of Public Health for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for Health Protection and Emergency Planning & Response, in addition to her substantive post as Director of Public Health for Wigan where she is also Chief Emergency Planning Officer and the Council’s chief commissioner for Leisure Services.
She is currently lead DPH for the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership for alcohol and substance misuse harm reduction and health protection transformation, including the development of a multi-agency antimicrobial resistance programme for the conurbation and has led the Greater Manchester health protection sector-led improvement work on which she was asked to attend and give evidence to the House of Commons Health Select Committee as part of their inquiry into public health functions in England post 2013. Kate co-chairs the Greater Local Health Resilience Partnership and is a member of the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum. She is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity strategic advisory board and the Chief Medical Officer’s advisory roundtable. Kate is a regular contributor to the Kings Fund senior leadership programmes and has been asked to contribute to NHS Scotland’s Leadership Cubed programme and the reforms of the Scottish Public Health system.