The PHA’s design and digital communications team is responsible for the development and maintenance of high quality resources produced in a range of media for use by the PHA and its stakeholders.

The corporate and public affairs section within the PHA covers the work areas of public relations, corporate communications and public affairs.

Effective communication

Good communication is an essential ingredient to the smooth running and performance of any organisation – whether in the public, private, community or voluntary sector. Without it, an organisation cannot be effective in its work and will ultimately underachieve and fall short of its key aims and objectives.

PHA staff provide particular expertise on service evaluation and review, assessment of the health and wellbeing needs of the population, and evidence-based practice. They also have a key role in supporting the development, implementation and evaluation of regional service frameworks.

Population screening programmes have a key role to play in early detection of disease and a range of programmes are currently available in Northern Ireland. The PHA has responsibility for commissioning, coordinating and quality assuring these programmes.

The Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) is run under agreement between the Public Health Agency and Queen's University of Belfast .

There are 11 PHA commissioning teams:

• Specialist services
• Unscheduled care
• Elective care
• Cancer care
• Palliative care
• Long-term conditions
• Maternity, paediatrics, gynaecology, child health
• Community care, elderly, physical disability
• Children and families
• Mental health, learning disability
• Prison services

Neonatal Intensive Care Outcomes Research and Evaluation (NICORE) has been routinely collecting data on neonatal units in Northern Ireland since 1994. We use this data to monitor a number of key quality markers and to ensure consistently high standards of care so that all babies admitted to a neonatal unit in Northern Ireland will benefit. The NICORE database is an important source of information which allows:

NIMACH (Northern Ireland Maternal and Child Health) collects and analyses data in support of Clinical Outcome Review Programmes.

The Clinical Outcome Review Programmes (previously known as confidential enquiries), are designed to help assess the quality of healthcare, and stimulate improvement in safety and effectiveness by systematically enabling clinicians, managers and policy makers to learn from adverse events and other relevant data. The programmes have a key role in supporting local, continuous improvements to service quality.