Dr Gemma Hughes

Gemma Hughes is Associate Professor of Healthcare Management at the University of Leicester School of Business, where she co-founded and co-directs the Centre for Healthcare Innovation, Policy and Management, and is co-Theme lead for Translation and Implementation Research at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) East Midlands Applied Research Collaborative. Gemma has previously held research positions at the University of Oxford, UK and the University of Oslo, Norway. Gemma’s research expertise is in the social organisation of health and care services. She is an interdisciplinary social scientist who works with qualitative methods to investigate and improve health services.

Gemma’s research addresses questions such as how technology mediates health and care, contributing to translational research on implementation and adoption of technology, and how clinical context facilitates shared decision-making. She has been awarded research funding by the NIHR. Prior to her academic career, Gemma gained professional experience in the public sector in the UK in the areas of homelessness and mental health, including in the voluntary sector and the NHS. Her experience informs her commitment to impactful research and a critical approach to applied health services research.

Gemma has published widely in journals that encompass social sciences, health services research, and medicine. Gemma was appointed co-Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Health Services Research and Policy in 2025 and will publish her first edited book in 2026.

Gemma holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Essex, an MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and a DPhil in Evidence-Based Health Care from the University of Oxford, which focused on integrated health and social care.

She is co-applicant on the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research) Oxford University-RAND Europe centre for rapid evaluation of technology-enabledremote monitoring: DECIDE (Digitally Enabled Care in Diverse Environments) (2023-2027).

In 2026 Gemma completed a study as Co-Principal Investigator: Understanding opportunities for enhancing shared decision-making for high risk patients considering major surgery through changes in organisational and clinical contexts funded by a NIHR Programme Development Grant linked to the OSIRIS (Optimising Shared Decision Making for High Risk Major Surgery) Programme Grant led by Professor Rupert Pearse (2019-2027).

Completed studies include: 

Witnessing harm, holding to account: Patient, family and colleague experiences following harm, when directly involved in health and care regulator Fitness to Practice proceedings in connection with a registered professional's behaviour. NIHR Health Services Research and Delivery 2021-2024. 

Remote by Default 2 - the New Normal? Care navigation. NIHR Health Services Research and Delivery 2022-2023. 

Virtual Presence, a cultural analysis of loneliness and technology led by Professor Marit Haldar, funded by the Research Council of Norway 2020-2023 

Video consulting during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic led by Professor Sara Shaw, funded by the Health Foundation 2020-2021

Studies in Co-creating Assisted Living Technologies led by Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, funded by the Wellcome Trust 2015-2020. 

2026

Hughes, G., Rybczynska-Bunt, S., O'Rourke, S., Shasha'h, S., Wherton, J., Shaw, S. and Greenhalgh, T. (2026) 'Remote Access to Primary Care: Theorising ‘Care Navigation’', Sociology of Health & Illness,48(4), pp. e70184.

Sriram, N., Glendinning, A., Stephens, T. Hughes, G. (2026) The involvement of anaesthetists and other healthcare professionals with surgeons in shared decision-making for adult patients contemplating surgery: a systematic review and narrative analysis British Journal of Anaesthesia Open,17, 100543.

Mueller, A., Hughes, G., Maniatopoulos, G. (2026) Contribution of an online intervention to developing communities of practice: mixed methods evaluation of an online safety hub to address harmful online content in relation to self-harm and suicide. JMIR Formative Research. Jan14;10:e72130.

2025

Wallace, L., Ryan, S., Hughes, G., Sorbie, A., Ryan-Blackwell, G., Haider, S. & West, R. (2025). Witness to Harm-Holding to Account. Improving patient, family and colleague experiences of Fitness to Practise proceedings: A mixed methods study. Health and Social Care Delivery Research.13(44)Health Soc Care Deliv Res2025;13(44).

Hughes, G., Ribenfors F., Ryan, S. Louise M. Wallace, LM, Searle, RH, Mueller, A, Greenfield, M, Sorbie, A.(2025) Iatrogenic injustice: an institutional ethnography of Fitness to Practise hearings. Social Science & Medicine 382, 118331.

Hughes, G., Shaw, SE, Bowley, J, Darbyshire, JL, Stephens, TJ. (2025) Choosing Wisely? A frame analysis of the evolution and adoption of shared decision-making in the UK. Social Science & Medicine -Qualitative Research in Health, Volume 8, 100579.

Greenhalgh, T., Alvarez Nishio, A., Clarke, A., Byng, R., Dakin, F., Faulkner, S., Hanson, I., Hemmings, N., Hughes, G., Husain, L., Kalin, A., Ladds, E., MacIver, E., Moore, L., O’Rourke, S., Payne, R., Pring, T., Rosen, R., Rybczynska-Bunt, S., Shaw, S.E., Swann, N., Wieringa, S., Wherton, J. (2025).Remote and digital services in UK general practice 2021-2023: the Remote by Default 2longitudinal qualitative study synopsis.13, 31.

Greenhalgh, T. Clarke, A., Byng, R., Dakin, F., Faulkner, S., Hemmings, N., Hughes, G., Husain, L. et al(2025) After the disruptive innovation: How remote and digital services were embedded, blended and abandoned in UK general practice – longitudinal study. NIHR Health & Social Care Delivery Research.

Shaw SE, Marjanovic S, Papoutsi C, Frances M. Wu, FM, Newhouse, N, Wherton J,Alvarez Nishio A, Darbyshire, JL, Fahy N, Ford GA, Hughes G, Ling T, Marciniak-Nuqui Z, Moriarty S, Petrou S, Potter CM, Redding S, Sheppard JP, Stockwell S, Sussex J, Todsen AL, Toole H, Ulytė A, van Dael J (2025)Digitally Enabled Care in Diverse Environments (DECIDE): protocol for a programme of rapid evaluation of technology-enabled remote monitoring in health and social care [version1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations].NIHR Open Res2025,5:28

2024

Hughes, G., Stephens, T.J., Seuren, L.M., Pearse, R.M., Shaw, S.E. (2024) Clinical context and communication in shared decision-making about major surgery: Findings from a qualitative study with colorectal, orthopaedic and cardiac patients. Health: An interdisciplinary journal for the social study of health, illness and medicine. 2024;0(0).

Hughes, G., Johannessen, L.E.F., Rasmussen, E.B. (2024) Editorial: Virtual Presence: loneliness, technology, and the production of human (dis)connectedness. Frontiers in Digital Health, 6.

Hughes, G., Moore, L., Hennessy, M., Jentoft, E.E., Sandset, T.J.A., Haldar, M. (2024) What kind of a problem is loneliness? Representations of connectedness and participation from a qualitative study of telepresence technologies in the UK Frontiers in Digital Health, 6.

Husain, L., Finlay, T., Husain, A., Wherton, J., Hughes, G., Greenhalgh, T. (2024). Developing user personas to capture intersecting dimensions of disadvantage in marginalised older patients: a qualitative study. British Journal of General Practice Mar 27;74(741):e250-e257.

Meier, N., Greenhalgh, T., Hughes, G., Papoutsi, C. (2024) Theorising Support for Interdisciplinary Early-Career Researchers Using Communicative Genre and ‘Rules of the Game’. Qualitative Health Research Mar 1:10497323231225150.

2023

Moore, L., Hughes, G., Shaw, S., Wherton, J. (2023) ‘When the visible body is no longer the seer’: the phenomenology of perception and the clinical gaze in video consultations Sociology of Health and Illness 1–19. 

Hogg H.D.J., Al-Zubaidy M., Keane P.A., Hughes, G., Beyer F.R. and Maniatopoulos G. (2023) Evaluating the translation of implementation science to clinical artificial intelligence: a bibliometric study of qualitative research. Frontiers in Health Services. 3:1161822.

Heath, L., Hajizadeh, A., Spratt, T., Ahmad, A., Jebb, S. Aveyard, P., Hughes, G. (2023) Clinician resistance to broaching the topic of weight in primary care: Digging deeper into weight management using strong structuration theory, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 329,

Shaw, S.E., Hughes, G., Pearse, R., Avagliano, E., Day, J.R. Edsell, M.E., Edwards, J.A., Everest, L. Stephens, T.J. (2023) Opportunities for shared decision-making about major surgery with high-risk patients: a multi-method qualitative study, British Journal of Anaesthesia, 131 :1 56-66

Hughes G, Rybczynska-Bunt S, Shasha'h S et al. (2023) Protocol: How can people with social care needs be supported through processes of digital care navigation to access remote primary care? A multi-site case study in UK general practice of remote care as the ‘new normal’. [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]. NIHR Open Research, 3:17

2022

Husain, L., Greenhalgh, T., Hughes, G., Finlay, T., Wherton, J. (2022) ‘Desperately Seeking the Intersectionality in Digital Health Disparities Research: Towards a Richer Theorisation of Multiple Disadvantage’, Journal of Medical Internet Research 24 (12): e42358

Wherton J., Greenhalgh T., Hughes G., Shaw S. (2022) The Role of Information Infrastructures in Scaling up Video Consultations During COVID-19: Mixed Methods Case Study Into Opportunity, Disruption, and Exposure, Journal of Medical Internet Research 24(11):e42431

Hughes, G.,S. (2022) Theorising the shift to video consulting during the COVID-19 pandemic: analysis of a mixed methods study using practice theory Social Science and Medicine 311, 115368 T., Shaw  J., Wood, G.W., Greenhalgh  G., Wherton, L., Maniatopoulos, Moore,

Rosen, R., Wieringa, S., Greenhalgh, T., Leone, C., Rybczynska-Bunt, S., Byng, R., Hughes, G., Moore, L., Shaw, S.; Wherton, J. (2022) Clinical risk in remote consultations: findings from in-pandemic qualitative case studies, British Journal of General Practice Open, 2022-04-29. Web.

Greenhalgh, T., Ladds, E., Wieringa, S., Hughes, G Moore, L., Papoutsi, C., Rosen, R., Wherton, J., Rushforth, A., Rybczynska-Bunt, S.,Shaw, S. (2022) Why do GPs rarely do video consultations? Qualitative study in UK general practice British Journal of General Practice.., ; 72 (718): e351-e360.

Hughes, G., Shaw, S., & Greenhalgh, T. (2022) Why doesn’t integrated care work? Using Strong Structuration Theory to explain the limitations of an English case Sociology of Health & Illness. 4400:1-17.

2021

Shaw, S E, Hughes, G., Wherton, J., Moore, L., Rosen, R., Papoutsi, C., Rushforth, A., Morris, J., Wood, G.W., Faulkner, S., Greenhalgh, T. (2021): Achieving Spread, Scale Up and Sustainability of Video Consulting Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Findings From a Comparative Case Study of Policy Implementation in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Frontiers in Digital Health Vol.3, p.754319-75431954319.

Lynch, J., Hughes, G., Papoutsi, C., Wherton, J. and A'Court, C. (2021). "“It's no good but at least I've always got it round my neck”: A postphenomenological analysis of reassurance in assistive technology use by older people."  Social Science & Medicine 292: 114553.

Johannessen L.E.F., Engebretsen E., Greenhalgh T., Hughes, G., Köhler-Olsen, J., Børve Rasmussen, E., Haldar, M. (2021) Protocol for ‘virtual presence’: a qualitative study of the cultural dialectic between loneliness and technology, BMJ Open 11:e047157.

Greenhalgh, T., Rosen, R., Shaw, S.E., Byng, R., Faulkner, S. Finlay, T. Grundy, E., Husain, L., Hughes, G., Leone, C., Moore, L., Papoutsi, C., Pope, C., Rybczynska-Bunt, S., Rushforth, A., Wherton, J., Wieringa, S., Wood, G.W. (2021) Planning and Evaluating Remote Consultation Services: A New Conceptual Framework Incorporating Complexity and Practical Ethics. Frontiers in Digital Health 3(103).

2020

Hughes, G., Shaw S.E., Greenhalgh T. (2020) Rethinking integrated care: a hermeneutic review of integrated care strategies and concepts. The Milbank Quarterly, 98: 446-492.

Shaw, S.E., Hughes, G., Stephens, T., Pearse, R., Prowle, J., Ashcroft, R., Avagliano, E., Day, J., Edsell, M., Edwards, J., Everest, L., OSIRIS Programme Group (2020) Understanding decision-making about major surgery: a qualitative study of shared decision making by high risk patients and their clinical teams. BMJ Open, 10(5), pp. e033703.

Shaw, S.E., Hughes, G. Hinder, S., Carolan, S. and Greenhalgh, T. (2020) Care organising technologies and the post-phenomenology of care: an ethnographic case study. Social Science & Medicine, 255.,

Kumpunen, S., Edwards, N., Georghiou, T., and Hughes, G. (2020). Why do evaluations of integrated care not produce the results we expect? International Journal of Care Coordination, 23(1).

2019

Hughes, G. (2019) Experiences of integrated care: reflections on tensions of size, scale, and perspective between ethnography and evaluation’ Anthropology & Medicine, 26(1), pp. 33-47.

Shaw, S.E., Hughes, G. and Greenhalgh, T. (2019) Standardisation and its consequences in health care: a case study of PRINCE2 project management training, in Hodgson, D., Hall, P., Bailey, S., Fred, M. (eds) Routledge Handbook of Projectification of the Public Sector

2018

Hughes, G. (2018) Symbolic, Collective and Intimate Spaces: An ethnographic approach to the places of integrated care, in Garnett, E., Reynolds, J. & Milton, S. (eds.) Ethnographies and Health: Reflections on empirical and methodological entanglements: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 123-140.

Greenhalgh T., Wherton J., Papoutsi C., Lynch J., Hughes G., A'Court C., Hinder S., Procter R., Shaw S.E. (2018)  ‘Analysing the role of complexity in explaining the fortunes of technology programmes: Empirical application of the NASSS framework’, BMC Medicine 16:66

Hughes, G. (2018) ‘Ethnography and Ethics: Securing Permission for Doctoral Research in and From the National Health Service’, SAGE Research Methods Cases

2017

Greenhalgh, T., Wherton, J., Papoutsi, C., Lynch, J., Hughes, G., A'Court, C., Hinder, S., Fahy, N., Procter, R., Shaw, S.E. (2017) ‘Beyond Adoption: A New Framework for Theorizing and Evaluating Nonadoption, Abandonment, and Challenges to the Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability of Health and Care Technologies’, Journal of Medical Internet Research

Hughes, G (2017) ‘New models of care: the policy discourse of integrated care’. People, Place and Policy, 11 (2), 72-89

Shaw, J., Shaw, S.E., Wherton, J., Hughes, G., and Greenhalgh, T. (2017). ‘Studying Scale-Up and Spread as Social Practice: Theoretical Introduction and Empirical Case Study’. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(7), e244.

Greenhalgh, T., Shaw, S.E., Wherton, J., Hughes, G., Lynch, J., A'Court, C., Hinder, S., Fahy, N., Byrne, E., Finlayson, A., Sorell, T., Procter, R. and Stones, R. (2016) 'SCALS: a fourth-generation study of assisted living technologies in their organisational, social, political and policy context', BMJ Open, 6(2).

Gemma is committed to spanning boundaries between policy, organisational and practice perspectives to contribute to understanding and addressing 'real world' problems of how to best organise care. She is able to consider supervising PhD students who wish to use qualitative methods to address similar concerns. 

Current doctoral students are:

At the University of Leicester: 

Merissa Hickman 'Maternal and paternal futures: responsibilisation practices in the preconception period to ensure health outcomes for babies' (2023-2027)

Elisa Nicodano: Comparing civilian and military leadership in decision-making under uncertainty (2024-2031)

At the University of Oxford:

Richard Gleave: Knowledge mobilisation in public health policy (2019-2026)

Successfully completed doctoral students at the University of Oxford: 

Dr Francis Ayomoh: Improving Task-shifting and Task-sharing for the provision of essential healthcare services in Nigeria (2021-2025 ) Commonwealth Scholarship Studentship

Dr Laiba Husain: Scaling up the use of video consultations for COVID-19 (2021-2024) University of Cambridge THIS Institute Fellowship

Dr Jackie Walumbe: Self-management of chronic pain, a critical interpretive inquiry (2018-2023) NIHR doctoral fellowship

Co-Editor in Chief, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy

Mentor for the Global Network for Digital Health Technology Integration

Member of the International Scientific Panel of the Primary Care Academy, Belgium

Co-editor of Frontiers in Digital Health Research Topic Virtual Presence: Loneliness, technology and the production of human (dis)connectedness

Member of the Advisory Board for DIGIT: The Norwegian Research School on Digitalization, Culture and Society

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2024. 

Winner of the NIHR School of Primary Care Research Impactful Contribution in Patient and Public Involvement Prize, 2019. 

Selected conference presentations: 

Keynote: The Transformative Power of Qualitative Research: Insights, Impact and Innovation, 7th Qualitative Health Research Network (QHRN) Conference, 14 May 2026, London, UK.

Artificial intelligence and social care for older people: a typology of care automating technologies, 7th Transforming Care Conference, 25 – 27 June 2025, Helsinki, Finland.

Experiencing and defining forms of harm: public witnesses and Fitness to Practise Hearings Health Service Research UK, Oxford, 8-10 July, 2024

Changing perceptions of loneliness: the use of telepresence technologies, 14^th Organisational Behaviour in Health Care Conference Oslo, Norway 3-5 April, 2024

From competition to commons: can we radically change how healthcare is offered by institutions to the public? 8^th International In Sickness and In Health Conference, Auckland, New Zealand/Aotearoa . 13-15 February 2024

Technological Change as Social Practice, February 2023 at The Research Centre for Digitalisation of Public Services and Citizenship (CEDIC) at Oslo Metropolitan University 

Home as Hub: Transforming domestic time, space and work through digital networks at STAY HOME: new perspectives on the home, University of Copenhagen, November 2022

The paradoxes of implementation: a need to reframe the purpose of implementation science? 13th Organisational Behaviour in Health Care Conference, Birmingham, September 2022

Virtual Presence: the dialectics of loneliness and technology at Politics of Technoscientific Futures, European Association of Studies of Science and Technology, Madrid, July 2022. 

The delights and dangers of doing ethnography in the NHS Keynote at Early-Career Ethnographers of the NHS, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, May 2022. 

Overbaked: researching and experiencing video consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic at MedSoc, British Sociological Association, September 2021

Blurring the Background - boundaries of the public and private in health and care at home at Tomorrow's Home 2050, University College London, Institute of Healthcare Engineering, November 2021. 

Video consulting: spread and scale up during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic at Health Services Research UK, June 2021.