On 14 May NMBI said a fond farewell to our great colleague Dr Judith Foley RGN, RCN, RNT, BNS, MEd, PG Cert Psychology, EdD, FFNMRCSI. Judith was part of the NMBI team for 18 years, working as an Education Officer and spending 5 years as Director of Education Standards for Nursing.

Through her knowledge, experience, dedication and commitment Judith made a vitally important contribution to the work of NMBI and has left a lasting impact on the organisation.

Judith has had a long and distinguished nursing career in clinical practice, education, and regulation, during which public protection and public safety were at the heart of all she did. 

As a proud children’s nurse Judith managed the process to set the standards for the integrated General and Children’s programmes that commenced in 2006. This process required a great deal of work, commitment and negotiation on her behalf to ensure the programme reflected service needs and most importantly the needs of children in Ireland. Following the evaluation of the undergraduate programme, Judith developed the current undergraduate standards and requirements that were implemented in 2018.  With her interest in education standards, she managed the groups that set the one-year post-graduate programmes for psychiatric and children’s nursing and most recently the standards for post-registration intellectual disability nursing. Following extensive consultation with the education and clinical stakeholders, Judith also initiated the National Clinical Assessment tool to ensure students achieve the required competencies to register with us and she worked to ensure students were supported to do this. During her time with NMBI, Judith travelled the country conducting site visits and recently, in response to Covid-19, she organised the NMBI’s first virtual site inspection.

All at NMBI would like to thank Judith for everything she has done for the organisation and the nursing profession, and we wish her the very best for the future.