She took on non-executive roles after retirement and was chair of North East London Strategic Health Authority until 30 June 2006.

She was a visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London, vice-president of the Alzheimer's Society and chair of council at St George's, University of London between 2009 and 2012,[4][failed verification] and was a non-executive member of Monitor (independent monitor of NHS Hospitals).

On 17 June 2004, she was made a life peer as Baroness Murphy, of Aldgate in the City of London,[1][2] taking an interest in mental health and ageing issues in the House of Lords where she sits as a crossbencher.

She was first married 1969–2000 to John Murphy, the branding 'guru' and brewer, and then second, from 2001, to Michael A Robb, a professor and a theoretical chemist.

[5] In January 2009, it was revealed that she was the author of a hoax letter about "cello scrotum" that was printed in the British Medical Journal in 1974.