Oonagh has been a patient representative in various capacities since 2005. She has participated in a range of activities at London North West Universoty Healthcare NHS Trust (e.g. PLACE assessments, infection-prevention committee, dementia-friendly assessments and local clinical excellence aware scoring) and has worked with her local Ealing CCG as a patient representative for clinical service procurement. From her professional life in public-sector tendering, she has developed an interest in how public services such as healthcare, justice and welfare services can interact to serve their populations more effectively.
Her interest in health service quality-improvement activity has been heightened by attending Sheffield Microsystems conferences and other quality focused events such as Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s QI sprint. She also undertook the Kings Fund – facilitated programme for Barts Health NHS Trust on ‘Leading collaboratively with patients, communities and third sector’ in 2017. She is particularly interested in patient experience within acute-sector services, emergency/urgent care, cancer services and end-of-life care.