Who we are and what we do
Yemisi Osho
Lisa Oluyinka
Neslyn Watson-Druee
Christopher McDonnell
Karen Sanders
Michael Smith
Andrew White
Sue Howkins
Karen Barrett
Barbara Walters
Tom Morahan
Yemisi Osho
Yemisi is active in promoting educational and professional development for RCN members and activists in London. She wants to strengthen the roles and voices of nurses to influence nursing and health care policy at local and national level. Yemisi is currently an RCN learning and development officer at the RCN SE London Outer branch. She is also a member of the Advanced Nurse Practitioners Forum and Nurses in Management and Leadership Forum. Her particular areas of interest are community and primary care, commissioning, leadership and professional development and service transformation and redesign.
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Lisa Oluyinka
Lisa trained at the University of West London and is particularly keen to raise awareness of learning disabilities nursing and also of the challenges faced by newly qualified nurses. She believes in working with other nursing trades unions to help achieve common goals for nurses. She has been an RCN Students Committee member for London and also a student information officer. Email: lisa.oluyinka@nhs.net
Neslyn Watson-Druee
Neslyn is committed to promoting nursing leadership and also to improving quality and patient safety in health care settings. She is also interested in improving the commissioning of quality mental health services. Neslyn was the inaugural Chair of the RCN Race and Ethnicity Committee and became a Fellow of the RCN in 2001.
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Christopher McDonnell
Christopher has been an activist in RCN London since joining the RCN as a student nurse. Christopher was initially a student steward, chair of the London region student forum, and a student member of the regional board. He is a staff nurse at Marie Curie Hospice, Hampstead. Christopher sums up his ambition as ‘to make a difference’.
Email: Christopher.mcdonnell@blueyonder.co.uk
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Karen Sanders
Karen has been an RGN for more than 20 years. For 11 years she worked in clinical practice with particular expertise in neurosciences and intensive care nursing. Karen has been a nurse educator for 12 years and presently works at London South Bank University teaching health care ethics, law and high dependency nursing. As part of this role she has five clinical link wards at a major London Teaching Hospital. Karen is a member of the RCN Ethics Advisory Panel.
Email: sanderkl@lsbu.ac.uk
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Michael Smith
Michael has over 20 years experience in acute nursing in such areas as oncology and burns and plastics. He is currently a charge nurse/emergency nurse practitioner at Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust. Mike has chaired his local trust partnership forum for more than 10 years and has been an RCN steward for 16. In that time he has done everything from negotiating major policy changes to chairing the local RCN branch and lobbying local MPs.
Email: mike.smithpbd@tesco.net
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Andrew White
Andrew is currently branch secretary for RCN inner north east London. Andrew initially worked as a health care assistant and then qualified as an adult nurse in 2001. He has worked for Barts and the London NHS Trust since then, initially as a staff nurse and now as the RCN nursing officer for the trust, as well as staff side chair and job evaluation lead. He has a special interest in cardiac nursing and emergency care.
Email: andrew0412@btinternet.com
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Sue Howkins
Sue represents RCN north west London inner branch on the board. She is both a registered nurse and a mental health nurse with experience in mental health and learning disabilities services. She is a disability equipment adviser for the Disability Living Foundation and prior to nursing had six years in retail pharmacy. Sue is enthusiastic about expanding the RCN branch role and actively reaching out to members.
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Karen Barrett
Karen is the safety representatives committee member on the board and was first an RCN steward in 1999, a role she still holds today. She works at St Georges NHS Trust in south west London. She is branch secretary of RCN south west inner London. She believes passionately in promoting the voice of members at board level.
Email: Karen.barrett@stgeorges.nhs.uk
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Barbara Walters
Barbara is a regional member of the board and trained and worked at Barts before taking a nursing volunteer post at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. On her return she trained in midwifery at the Whittington Hospital, and after various roles, including gynaecological ward sister at the Royal Free, moved into education. She has been Chair of the RCN Gynaecological Nursing Forum for nine years. Her area of special interest is womens’ health.
Email: barbie4755@hotmail.com
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Tom Morahan
Tom is the member for RCN outer south east London. Currently based at Oxleas NHS Trust he has worked in mental health services in south London since 1976 and is currently a manager in forensic mental health. Tom has been actively involved in the RCN in London for 10 years as a learning rep and a steward. He is secretary of his local RCN branch and was elected to the London region board in 2008.