Sarah O’Donnell is a registered adult nurse. At university, she was a student and school representative and university senator. She gained a postgraduate certificate in advanced nursing practice and became a general practice nurse (GPN) and independent prescriber.

Ms O’Donnell’s passion for supporting her patients and other healthcare professionals led her into training. She has the core aim of teaching how to put knowledge into practice in the primary care setting, keeping the patient at the forefront of clinical decision-making and being safe in practice. She also had work commissioned by NHS England for supporting the general practice ten-point plan in recruitment and retention. For this she created the General Practice Nursing Student Nurse Network, with the aim of increasing the number of newly qualified nurses going into general practice and supporting each other through their careers.

Ms O’Donnell currently works as the strategic lead for primary care and integration at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and locums as a GPN and a freelance trainer for various companies around the UK. One of her achievements in the past year has been the creation of the general practice information point, hosted on the GP Confederation website. This set of webpages brings together national guidelines, information and patient help from across the UK to a one-stop shop for information sharing in general practice.

Ms O’Donnell is also active on social media and promotes general practice, nursing and team care. She is a quality improvement and change management advocate and has spoken at various events championing this, and training others on how to support practice to help positive change.

She has recently been awarded the Queen’s Nurse title.