Dr Gemma Hughes

I joined the University of Leicester School of Business in 2023.  I previously held research posts at the University of Oxford, where I was also a Research Fellow at Reuben College, and the University of Oslo.  My current role involves teaching and research on Healthcare Innovation, Policy and Management. 

I have a professional background in the public sector in the UK, having started my career working in the areas of homelessness and mental health in the voluntary sector before pursuing a career in the NHS where I held senior service improvement and commissioning roles. 

My doctoral research, completed in 2019, was inspired by my NHS work on integration and was an ethnographic case study of integrated health and social care for people at high risk of hospital admission. Since then, I have conducted research into the adoption of technology and the practice of decision-making in health and care settings.  I am a social scientist who uses qualitative methods and have a strong commitment to public engagement in research. 

I am a social scientist concerned with the intersections between organisational practices, health and social care policy and people's experiences. I am interested in the social and political organisation of health and care. My research has included studies of integrated care, decision-making and the use of technology in addressing health and social problems.  I have a professional background in the UK public sector which informs my interest in tackling 'real world' problems.

My current research includes an investigation of how organisational and clinical context shapes shared decision making, as part of Optimising Shared-Decision Making for High-Risk Major Surgery (OSIRIS) led by Professor Rupert Pearse, funded by NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research 2019-2025. 

Recently 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 

During the pandemic I researched video consulting: 

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

And have studied technologies in health and social care: 

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

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., Moore, L., Maniatopoulos, G., Wherton,  J., Wood, G.W., Greenhalgh  T., Shaw 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

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., Catherine 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, Routledge

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, 19(11):e367

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.

2016

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).

I am 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 and am interested in hearing from potential PhD students with similar interests. 

I am currently co-supervising two doctoral students at the University of Leicester: 

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

Bemigho Aghanenu: Exploring burnout in healthcare assistants in UK NHS hospitals (2023-)

I am currently co-supervising three 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- )
Commonwealth Scholarship Studentship 

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

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

I co-supervised Dr Jackie Walumbe's NIHR funded DPhil: Self-management of chronic pain, a critical interpretive inquiry (2018-2022). 

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: 

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.