Rita has worked in a variety of clinical settings at ward sister level with experience in emergency departments and general medicine. She moved from clinical posts in 2001 to hold several corporate nursing posts within Health and Social Care Trusts. She has a special interest in leadership, management, service improvement to improve patient experience, and human factors training.

Rita joined the Royal College of Nursing [RCN] in 2009 as a Senior Professional Development Officer, during this time she facilitated multidisciplinary health care teams to: improve, reform and modernise practice; develop and redesign services; implement evidence into practice; and evaluate the effectiveness of change. She wrote and produced the Regulating Rita play, which is used to give nurses insight into Nursing and Midwifery Council hearings. Rita was also awarded a Florence Nightingale Leadership scholarship in 2010 through which she was able to attend a High Potentials Leadership Programme in Harvard University.

Rita was then appointed to the position of Associate Director of Nursing Policy and Practice.  She also supported RCN members through industrial action, including strike action in 2019 and 2020 and at that time was Trade Union Side Secretary for the RCN. Rita is currently the Executive Director of the RCN in Northern Ireland. In October 2024, the Queen’s University of Belfast conferred Rita the title of Honorary Professor of Practice.