Maura O'Neill Assistant Director Performance and Service Improvement

About me

Maura is a GenerationQ Fellow and Assistant Director Performance and Service Improvement, Western Health and Social Care Trust.

The Western Health and Social Care Trust is one of five Trusts that provide health and social care services across Northern Ireland. Maura is Assistant Director for Performance and Service Improvement, and is responsible for leading the corporate planning processes across the Trust, and the facilitation of reform and modernisation. She is responsible for a budget of over £20 million and influences the planning and commissioning of all services.

Maura has also held the post of Head of Health Improvement at the Trust and has led many public health campaigns, including one that led to the Trust being the first in Northern Ireland to go smoke-free. This became regional Northern Ireland policy two years later.

Having worked as a senior leader for over 10 years, Maura has worked across boundaries with statutory, voluntary and community groups, building skills and relationships. This has allowed her to learn from others, understand people’s needs and work creatively together to develop improvement initiatives.

She hopes the GenerationQ fellowship will provide her with ‘a unique opportunity to learn and discuss ways of working and behaving with like-minded people’. She also hopes the fellowship will help her in supporting the new culture that is being nurtured at the Trust: ‘We are at the very beginning of an exciting journey at the Trust, and it is one that will require key people to take the lead, space to discuss needs-led models and care, development of meaningful goals and clear outcomes, and a supportive culture across the system.’