Fiona Kinghorn to receive honorary degree from Cardiff Metropolitan University

Fiona Kinghorn, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s Executive Director of Public Health, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Cardiff Metropolitan University.   

The accomplished health board executive, who will officially receive the degree at her conferral on Monday, July 24, was praised by the university for being an “inspiring individual” and an “excellent role model” to students and graduates.   

In a career spanning 40 years, with a large part of that within the NHS, Fiona has built up a wealth of experience across a range of different clinical and public health arenas. She has also studied and worked in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before spending the last 15 years in consultant and leadership positions in several NHS Wales organisations.  

Not much more than a year after taking on her current role in October 2018, she was called upon to lead the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic for Cardiff and Vale, including the regional health protection approach and with responsibility for testing and mass vaccination of the local population. 

Throughout that period, she worked closely with local government and other key strategic partners, including Cardiff Metropolitan University and the academic sector as a whole, to ensure that communities were protected. 

She has also forged close ties with Cardiff Met’s School of Sport and Health Sciences on the Move More Cardiff physical activity and sport strategy, a social movement taking a whole-systems approach to making physical activity the norm in the city.  

Commenting on the honorary doctorate, Fiona said: “I feel very proud. I’ve worked really hard for everything that I have ever received, so to be given such an accolade in recognition of my work is really lovely and humbling. The news came completely out of the blue.   

“Myself and my fantastic team, with local government and Public Health Wales, have worked alongside Cardiff Met during the pandemic to ensure that the university – as well as other academic institutions – could remain viable organisations during the pandemic and keep their students and employees safe.   

“I’ve also been working with the university’s leadership team to work out how we join the ambitions of sport with physical activity. Traditionally the terms ‘sport’ and ‘physical activity’ were very separate and never the twain should meet, but we’ve put our collective heads together and come up with a vision that joins together and builds upon their respective strengths.” 

Dean of Cardiff Metropolitan University’s School of Sport and Health Sciences, Professor Katie Thirlaway, said: “Through her work in public health, Fiona has had a significant impact on protecting and promoting the health and wellbeing of people in Cardiff and Vale and across Wales.   

“The dedication Fiona has shown to her industry and addressing health inequalities will no doubt act as a real source of inspiration for our graduates as they embark on the next stage of their lives.”  

Originally from Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, Fiona left home at 18 to work as an assistant domestic bursar in Goldsmiths College London before successfully applying for nursing training in Edinburgh, specialising once she qualified in urology and neurosurgery.   

But Fiona said she always found herself wanting to explore other arenas to progress her career path and set her sights on public health after a spell studying French and International Relations in Aberdeen University, and through working in different roles and settings internationally. 

This included a year-long stint in Saudi Arabia where she worked as a nurse in a medical unit Security Forces Hospital, Riyadh, to self-fund her Master’s degree in public health at Cardiff University. She also had another subsequent spell working abroad, this time with aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres supporting Congolese refugees in northern Zambia – a place where her French certainly came in handy.  

During her three-month stint there, Fiona was faced with the brutal realities of refugee life and oversaw local health services that treated patients experiencing malnutrition, respiratory issues, gastrointestinal diseases and malaria among many other conditions. It was there that she further honed her skills in applied epidemiology, nutritional surveys and mass vaccinations.  

But Fiona said she was always drawn back to the UK and, over more than a decade, built up an impressive portfolio of research work and public health improvement before landing her first locum Director of Public Health role in the then-known Rhondda Cynon Taf Local Health Board, and following this in Vale of Glamorgan Local Health Board. 

The following eight years working as a consultant within the larger, integrated Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Fiona achieved the Deputy Director of Public Health role and then became Interim Director of Public Health for the first time in late 2016 when the Health Board was facing some real challenges – a period she admits was difficult for all concerned.  

But the challenge would pale in comparison to the early part of her second year as Executive Director of Public Health when Covid-19 first hit the UK. Leading on regional public health protection with partners, and on testing and mass immunisation, Fiona described the workload and the ever-changing implementation of new policy as “relentless”.  

“Way before Test, Trace, Protect we needed to create a whole system of mass testing. Our Primary Community and Intermediate Care Clinical Board held a lot of responsibility within that. It was a period of rapid change and constant requirement on delivering and adapting these services at scale,” she added. 

“You worked from morning until night. You’d see people staying until midnight trying to get things right. Then, once Test, Trace Protect had been set up, we were planning for mass immunisation programme of the ilk that we had never seen in our lives.  

“I think the whole period just made me realise what excellent and committed teams we have, not just in the Health Board but our partners. We strengthened our relationships and had the collective aim of protecting and supporting our local populations through this period.”   

Fiona said one of the biggest challenges facing public health in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan is addressing inequalities, or unfair differences, between different communities.   

“The knock-on effects of inequities on people’s lives is one of the biggest challenges we have, and as a consequence of that it’s fairly clear that the general health of many people has been impacted during the pandemic – including both physical and emotional health,” she admitted.