Eilish Meehan (Elizabeth Anne Meehan) is recognised in the 2026 Kings New Years Honours list with an MBE

Three recent examples of Elish’s work are of particular significance include:

1. Trans-gender patients: The HSC like many public sector bodies grapple with IT systems which were developed in an era that pre-dates today’s world where patients may not identify with their gender at birth.

Eilish personally has undertaken to improve this position for this  group through dogged pursuit of the development of  policy, she has developed a pilot across all the HSC and is constantly lobbying on behalf of the marginalized.

2. Homeless patients: By the nature of their transient addresses and footprints make it difficult to form a single view of these patients.

For clinicians a single view of the patient is crucial in-patient care. She identified that homeless patients were at risk because of this fragmentation and are an under-represented group. Working with support groups and across the HSC she championed these patients to ensure their records could be more easily identified and joined together for the benefits of patients and clinicians.

3. Adopted Patients – When a person is adopted, they are given a new identity, in the HSC this also means the creation of a new medical record.

It is critically important that episodes of care from the patient’s past are brought into their new record in a sensitive way but ensuring no trace of previous identity is there; in practice this is very hard to deliver. Eilish has work tirelessly in this area to both protect the patient but also ensure their care is not compromised.