A few weeks ago I tweeted that health inequalities and public health will not disappear as Public Health England (PHE) ceases to be – certainly not for every director of public health. There were a lot of people who agreed with me, including many of my public health colleagues and to my great delight, director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity, Professor Sir Michael Marmot. I was asked to write a thought piece about why I think and say this.

Last month, I celebrated 40 years since I started my working career in local government as a trainee environmental health officer. I made a choice to study environmental health because I wanted to make a difference for those with less money, to improve their health.