Dr Josie O'Heney

Josie O’Heney studied medicine at Imperial College and is an advanced trainee in obstetrics and gynaecology in North-East London. Her clinical areas of interest are obstetric medicine and labour ward management. She embraces opportunities to undertake successful quality improvement, including a project to introduce personalised theatre hats to improve communication and patient experience, and presented this work at a national conference. She has also presented work at international conferences and has published scientific papers.

She is studying towards an executive masters at the London School of Economics in health economics, policy and management. This is giving her an excellent understanding of economic decisions in resource allocation and a theoretical background to enable her evaluate healthcare policy decisions.

She is passionate about advancing evidence based best practice for women and is currently working with the National Guideline Alliance on updating the NICE guidance for intrapartum care of healthy women and babies.

Reason for applying for the scheme

Josie is passionate about providing excellent maternity care for women, and is keen to make an impact on wider healthcare provision. Clinicians bring valuable skills to leadership roles and her clinical background together with her studies at LSE make her an ideal leader of the future. Through the scheme, and in particular with her work at Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) she hopes to gain ‘hands on’ experience of utilising national audit data to influence positive change. She hopes to develop her leadership skills and gain knowledge to make her well placed to work with national bodies in advancing high quality obstetrics and gynaecology care in the NHS of the future.