Improving health and social care - right touch regulation in practice

Professor Lourda Geoghegan

MB MPH MSc PhD FRCPI FFPHMI FFPH MFMLM

Lourda is currently Deputy Chief Medical Officer in the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. She commenced in this role in June 2020, and prior to that (from Mar 2020) she was temporarily seconded to the Department as a Senior Medical Adviser working on the Department’s response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past 4 years Lourda has been a core member of the Department’ senior medical team responding to and mitigating the impacts of the pandemic. More recently she has been working on the Department’s strategies for recovering both the health service and the health of the population, as Northern Ireland emerges from the pandemic. She also provides advice and expertise to range of medical professional, educational and workforce related policy matters.

Lourda was previously Medical Director and Quality Improvement Lead in the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), the health and care system regulator in Northern Ireland. She held that role from Jan 2017 to Mar 2020. Prior to that Lourda worked as a Consultant in Public Health/Health Protection in the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland, from its establishment in 2009.

Lourda qualified from National University of Ireland, Galway in 1994. She received her Masters in Public Health (MPH) from University College Dublin in 2000. She completed her service training in Public Health in Northern Ireland between 2004 and 2009. She was awarded her PhD in Health Services Research from University College Dublin in 2009.

Lourda was Health Foundation GenerationQ Fellow from 2013 to 2015, during this time she completed her Masters in Leadership (Service Improvement) through Ashridge Executive Education, Hult International Business School, London. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (Faculty of Public Health) and the UK Faculty of Public Health. Until recently she was Chair of the Ireland Chapter of Eisenhower Fellowships, an independent non-profit organisation supporting leadership development in the US and globally.

Host or Publisher Ulster Medical Society