We are a transdisciplinary research team of social scientists and clinical researchers.
Lisa Ashmore, Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University
Lisa is Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at Lancaster Medical School. Her research focusses on experiences of technology in healthcare. She considers multiple perspectives in her work including organisations, patients, practitioners, families and carers. She uses insights from Science and Technology Studies to think about knowledge production, accountability, responsibility and care as results of interactions with technologies.
Her work is based on collaboration and engagement with NHS organisations and academic institutions and she is keen to apply participatory methods. The methods she uses in her research include conducting workshops and focus groups but she also uses other social science methods, such as ethnography (to explore cultures of practice) and narrative methods (to explore experiences of healthcare).
Prior to completing her PhD, Lisa trained and worked as a Therapeutic Radiographer. She has gathered experience from a number of different contexts and become increasingly interested in how we could understand patients’ experiences of radiotherapy treatment better. Significantly how we could support patients and practitioners in understanding the effects of radiotherapy, thinking about wellbeing, relationships and sexuality in order to move beyond physical or pathological description.
Vicky Singleton, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University
Vicky is Professor at Lancaster University, based in the Sociology Department. She has worked at Lancaster University since 1992, prior to which she trained as a Registered General Nurse. She is Director of the Centre for Science Studies and she also works in the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies. She has researched in the area of gender, sexuality, health and biomedicine from completing her doctorate (1992), which focused on women’s experiences of cervical screening.
Vicky’s research interests focus on the relationships between technologies and care and between on-the ground practices and policy. She is passionate about promoting health care that is accessible to all and that is responsive to diverse needs, concerns and lived experiences. In this project, as in most of her work, she is especially interested to work alongside patients and professionals to explore how radiotherapies and their related care practices can better support patients during and after their treatment.
Daniel Hutton, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Danny is a Change Manager with the Transforming Cancer Care project team at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. The project is responsible for designing and delivering a new cancer centre in Liverpool. His clinical experience is as a Therapeutic Radiographer and Clinical Researcher. His research interests include patient experience, workforce development and public health. As a Quality Improvement practitioners, he is passionate about translating best evidence and policy into practice for patient benefit. Recent improvement activity has revolved around smoking cessation and the role of vaping as part of a harm reduction approach.
Danny is excited to work on this project and explore how technology can better support patients during and importantly after their treatment. Also interested in how technology can better assist professionals in supporting patients, especially in areas that staff may traditionally see as outside their role or expertise.
Lynda Appleton, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Lynda works as an academic nurse researcher leading on a range of studies exploring all aspects of psycho-oncology using in-depth interviews with patients and their families, including the impact of roles and relationships on health and wellbeing, and how disease, illness and treatment influences coping and decision-making.
Her research interests also include the evaluation of interventions e.g. peer support, assessment tools, digital technologies and supportive care, aimed at improving health outcomes and quality of life amongst people affected by, and living with, a diagnosis of cancer. She collaborates with a wide range of clinical and academic partners and work in partnership with patients as members of the research team.
Lynda is supporting the Gynae Cancer Narratives Project, which explores how technology can better support patients following their cancer treatment. The work will integrate with the broader digital health agenda for the Trust.
Mette Kragh-Furbo, Lancaster Medical School and Department of Sociology, Lancaster University
Mette is a researcher on the Gynae Cancer Narratives Project. She completed her PhD in Sociology at Lancaster University in 2015. Her research focuses on the body and the biological, health and illness, and data practices. She draws on the sociology and anthropology of science and technology, the philosophy of biology, and culture and media studies in her work. Her work has involved looking at biosensing practices, in particular direct-to-consumer genetic testing, focusing on how individuals make sense of their genetic data, when this kind of data moves outside the clinic and into and across online platforms and digital cultures. Mette is broadly interested in the relationships between science and medicine, and how scientific and biomedical understandings as well as assumptions about the body and the biological are translated, represented and made sense of by individuals as well as health care practitioners, consumer health companies, health advocacy groups, and the popular press.
Hilary Stewart, Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University
Hilary is a researcher on the Gynae Cancer Narratives Project. Hilary gained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Glasgow in 2016. Her research interests include ‘all things bodies’, health, disability & illness and the psychosocial experience of these. Her doctoral research considered how Bourdieu’s social theory could be applied to Disability Studies to explore how society produces oppressive and exclusionary systems of classification which structures the social position and perceptions of disability and how this is intensified by austerity politics.
Lorraine Salisbury, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Lorraine is currently undertaking a split role as an On Treatment Review Advanced Practitioner, which involves reviewing patients with Breast, Lung, Prostate and Endometrium cancers during their course of radiotherapy. She is an experienced Therapeutic Radiographer (qualified in 2004), with experience in Brachytherapy, and since 2011, she has been working alongside specialist doctors and nurses, which has allowed her to consolidate her knowledge in gynaecological cancers. She is fortunate to be seconded for 6 months in 2006, working as a Radiotherapy Support Practitioner within a multi-disciplinary team looking at not only treatment reactions but the psychological side effects of patient as well as their families. These roles have complimented each other very well, which has allowed her to remain updated with emerging technologies and treatment techniques whilst enabling her to discuss the psycho-social experiences of patients as well as treatment reactions.
Lorraine is currently writing her Masters dissertation – auditing the current On Treatment Review Service looking at new ways of improving the patients’ pathway, during and post treatment, and finding out where the gaps are and how these gaps can be filled.
Former Team Members
Charlotte Baugh, Liverpool University
Charlotte is currently a PhD student at the University of Liverpool researching how social media can be used to improve engagement from patients and the public in clinical trials research. She graduated first class with honours in Applied Psychology BSc and went on to further education and subsequently graduated with a distinction in Health Psychology MSc.
Throughout her degrees, her theses focused on the quality of life of patients with long term medical conditions and chronic illnesses. More specifically, her undergraduate BSc dissertation looked into the use of complementary therapies by patients with cancer and the perceived effect on their psychological subjective well-being. For her post-graduate MSc thesis, she focused on the cognitive impacts and overall dynamics of gabapentinoid medication in patients with fibromyalgia.
Following her BSc and MSc, Charlotte gained experience in an NHS research department as a Research Officer within the Clinical Trials Department at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.
Charlotte’s future aspirations are to conduct her own research in the field of psycho-oncology, with a focus on clinical trials research and how different approaches could help aid patient quality of life throughout their cancer journey and subsequently whether this could help inform better patient care.
Hannah Doughty, Liverpool University
Hannah is a PhD Student at The University of Liverpool. Her PhD is focussed on supporting head and neck cancer patients living with, or beyond cancer. Prior to her current position, Hannah worked as a Research Officer at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, and Liverpool John Moores University. Hannah has also worked as a Researcher in the department of Psychological Sciences, and Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine, at The University of Liverpool.
Hannah’s specific research interests include but are not limited to: quality of life; preventative medicine, service reconfiguration; and advanced technology in patient care, across a variety of tumour sites. Additionally, Hannah has previously volunteered at St. Johns Hospice in her spare time supporting patients, many of whom were suffering from cancer.
Hannah has a background in Psychology and was awarded a First Class BSc (Hons) Psychology degree in 2015. Hannah is excited to work on this project as it will help to answer the question regarding how technology can shape future practice, and improve clinical outcomes for both patients and staff.