Ann O'Leary Assistant Director, Donor and Transplantation Services

About me

Ann is a GenerationQ Fellow and Assistant Director, Donor and Transplantation Services, at Anthony Nolan.

She leads five teams at the charity that are responsible for the operational logistics of facilitating around 1,400 transplants each year. This includes ensuring they meet their regulatory and accreditation requirements; that they bring in projected income of around £40m a year; and that expenditure is carefully managed. She works to ensure the charity provides well-typed, well-matched, highly committed donors for patients, and an efficient and timely service for the transplant centres it supports.

Ann has worked at the charity since 2010, and has been promoted several times. Previously she worked for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.

During her GenerationQ fellowship, Ann will lead on a project to develop new services for Anthony Nolan’s NHS customers, in order to reduce time to transplant and improve customer service. She will work with a small number of transplant centres to understand their needs and challenges, and to co-design services to support them. This will then be rolled out across the transplant centre network.

'The impact of this project could be far-reaching. Time to transplant is linked closely to survival and, by reducing the time, we can potentially offer patients a better chance of life post-transplant.'

Ann hopes that GenerationQ will help by enabling her to learn from others: 'Expanding my network of contacts within the wider health care sector could offer the opportunity for collaboration with, and certainly for learning from, one another.'