POCT All-Ireland Networking Forum

I am a Senior Medical Scientist in Cork University Hospital with over 25 years’ experience working in Laboratory Medicine, across Biochemistry, Immunology and Point of Care Disciplines. I have an MSc in Biomedical Science and am currently undertaking an MSc in Leadership in Healthcare. I have acted as Quality Coordinator for POCT and as Deputy Quality Manager for Laboratory Medicine, CUH for the last 5 years. During this time, I have been responsible for taking the POCT department from establishment to full ISO15189:2022 accreditation status for all POCT devices. My current role involves extending POCT out to community services.

Michael O’Meara is a Specialist Registrar in Chemical Pathology. Prior to this Michael spent time as a renal registrar, haematology and transfusion registrar and completed the basic specialist training scheme in internal medicine and medical membership exams and is now working towards completion of FRCPath exams. Michael was also a medical scientist in clinical chemistry many years ago in St James’ Hospital.

Professor Cathy Harrison is an accomplished senior healthcare executive and strategic system leader with more than three decades of experience spanning pharmacy practice, health and social care transformation, policy, legislation, workforce reform, innovation and digital transformation. As Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Northern Ireland at the Department of Health, she is the head of the pharmacy profession and the most senior professional advisor to the Minister of Health on pharmaceutical and medicines issues.

Cathy is the senior responsible owner for the Neighbourhood Health and Wellbeing Programme in Northern Ireland. She is also SRO for the ePharmacy Digital Reform of Primary Care Programme that will introduce electronic transfer of prescriptions and digitise community pharmacy services in Northern Ireland by 2030. 

Cathy is a qualified pharmacist. She undertook her pharmacy undergraduate degree at Liverpool John Moore’s University and postgraduate degree at Queen’s University, Belfast.  After graduation she worked in community pharmacy in England and Northern Ireland before joining the Department of Health in 2005 as Principal Pharmaceutical Officer.  She was later promoted to Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer before being appointed as Chief Pharmaceutical Officer in January 2019.  

Cathy leads a wide-ranging work programme involving pharmacy and medicines policy and legislation.  She led the Department of Health’s response to EU transition and the regional pharmacy response to COVID-19 and subsequent service rebuilding.  She also leads the implementation of strategies to improve the safety and benefits of medicines ‘The Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework (MOQF)’ and ‘Valuing Medicines Strategy’, supported by a Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC) which she co-founded in 2015.  This involves collaborative working with stakeholders from academia, industry, community development, VCSE and health and social care. 

Cathy has an interest in system reform, the integration of multi-skilled teams across health and social care sectors, combining professional and technical skills with redesigned services, medicines, diagnostics and new technologies. 

Cathy is committed to realising pharmacy’s greater contribution to better health outcomes for patients and more effective utilisation of health resources.  

Cathy is an honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pharmacy.  

Professor Cathy Harrison BSc, MSc, MPSNI, FRCP

After completing a PhD in Diabetes in The Queen’s University of Belfast, Jenny embarked on a career as a Clinical Scientist in Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. She was the Principal Clinical Scientist in the Regional Toxicology Laboratory from 2013-2021, before taking up her current position as a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Biochemistry and POCT in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. Jenny is the current Chair of the Northern Ireland POCT Specialty Forum. She is also the STP training officer for Biochemistry in Northern Ireland, a member of the RCPath NI Council, and an associate editor for Labmed News. 

Paudy O Gorman in an experienced laboratory practitioner with particular interest in digital transformation. Paudy is the Laboratory Manager in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH), Dublin. MMUH is a level 4 teaching hospital providing a range of frontline and specialist services on a regional and national level. The Mater is the National centre for Heart and Lung Transplant, ECMO, HIPEC, and Spinal Injuries to mention but a few.  

Before taking up his current role Paudy worked as Point Of Care Testing Manager in two of Dublin’s larger University Teaching Hospitals and as Robotic Process Automation Lead & Project Facilitator with the Mater Transformation team delivering major change projects across the hospital.

Paudy is also a Lean practitioner holding a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. Paudy was formerly POCT Lead for the National MedLIS Project in Ireland and was the MedLIS Implementation Lead for the Mater Hospital. Paudy was responsible for the implementation of NPEx in the Mater during 2020 

Noreen Montgomery is Chief Medical Scientist of the Clinical Biochemistry & Serology Department at Sligo University Hospital (SUH)l.  An ATU Galway Medical Science graduate, Noreen continued her studies at the University of London where she completed the MSc in Clinical Biochemistry while working at Kings College Hospital. During subsequent years working at the Clinical Biochemistry Department of Antrim Area Hospital, Noreen gained valuable experience within Near Patient Testing.  Since 2019 SUH has witnessed transformational change in the delivery of Near Patient Testing through involvement with HSE Procurement and numerous stakeholders, the department has scaled up the provision of NPT services resulting in more than a doubling of the number of devices that the department oversees.  Extending into off site locations and upskilling wider teams has only been made possible because of developments in Information Technology and enhanced connectivity solutions.

Her presentation will outline the challenges and successes associated with the journey toward delivering quality assured community-based diagnostics.

Clare Connolly is a Respiratory Nurse Specialist currently working as a COPD Outreach Clinical Nurse Specialist at Galway University Hospital. With extensive experience in asthma and COPD management, she has held specialist respiratory nursing and research roles at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where she helped establish the severe asthma service. Clare has presented at national and international conferences and is committed to improving outcomes for people living with chronic respiratory disease through evidence-based, patient-centred care.