Rachel was appointed as HIQA’s Director of Health Information and Standards and Director of the National Care Experience Programme in September 2015. She joined HIQA in November 2007 and has held various positions such as the Health Information Manager in Quality and the Head of Healthcare Assurance Programmes in Healthcare Regulation.

She and her team are responsible for setting national standards for health and social care services which are approved by the Minister for Health. This involves developing person-centred standards, based on evidence and - international best practice. National standards are used to drive improvements in services and also support HIQA’s monitoring and regulatory activities.  

She has executive responsibility for the National Care Experience Programme which drives improvements in our health and social care services by understanding service user experience. This is a partnership with the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive. The programme runs a number of national surveys, such the National Inpatient Experience Survey and National Maternity Experience Survey, with more surveys under development.

She is also responsible for health information, as set out in the Health Act. Her remit is to identify deficiencies in Ireland’s eHealth landscape and develop national recommendations to improve eHealth. She and her team are responsible for setting standards for national data collections and reporting compliance against these national standards by evaluating the quality of the information available and making recommendations to improve the quality and filling in gaps where information is needed but is not currently available.