Contact information
Research groups
Colleges
Collaborators
Francesca H. Dakin
BA, M.Phil, D.Phil
Senior Qualitative Digital Health Researcher
- Mildred Blaxter Fellow
- Junior Research Fellow, St Anne's Colleges/ The Centre for Personalised Medicine
Background
Francesca is a Senior Digital Health Researcher in the IRIHS group. She is also a Mildred Blaxter Fellow, and a Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College and The Centre for Personalised Medicine.
She is currently working on:
- The provision of remote care to patients on the Special Allocation Scheme (SEARCH)
- Virtual palliative care
- AI-enabled tools in access and triage in UK general practice
Francesca’s doctoral project (funded by NIHR SPCR) was an ethnographic case study of the digitalisation of UK general practice, which sought to understand how remote technologies changed the kinds of work performed by staff, patients, and teams, and how this was navigated at individual and organisational levels. Within this, she extended and developed cross-disciplinary theory, designed and implemented a new approach to PPIE, and made novel contributions to our understanding of how digitalisation affected patients and staff. She was supervised by Professor Trish Greenhalgh, Professor Ninna Meier, Dr Tanvi Rai, and Dr Sara Paparini.
Previous projects:
- Remote-by-Default 2, co-leading two workstreams focused on workforce and access/inequalities, and working closely with The Nuffield Trust
- SLIM-CARD, conducting qualitative research integrated into an RCT on bariatric surgery outcomes
- ModCons Goes Dutch, a digital triage knowledge exchange between the UK and the Netherlands
- Independent consultancy on digital health services
- The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute at the University of Cambridge, contributing to a variety of healthcare improvement projects, with a particular focus on digital technologies and remote consulting
Interests:
Digital health technologies; remote consulting; applied artificial intelligence; healthcare organisations; change/innovation; inequalities; patient access; digital triage; theory-building
Additional roles:
- EMCR committee member as Athena Swan Data Monitoring Lead
Guest lecturer on the MSc in Translational Health Sciences
Supervisor on the MSc in Translational Health Sciences
Advisor on the MSc in Digital Health
Advisor on the MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation
- Supports the delivery of the Society for Academic Primary Care's Digital Technologies Special Interest Group.
Recent publications
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Remote and digital services in UK general practice 2021-2023: the Remote by Default 2 longitudinal qualitative study synopsis
Journal article
Greenhalgh T. et al, (2025), Health and Social Care Delivery Research, 13, 1 - 49
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After the disruptive innovation: How remote and digital services were embedded, blended and abandoned in UK general practice - longitudinal study
Journal article
Greenhalgh T. et al, (2025), Health and Social Care Delivery Research, 13, 1 - 37
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Navigating change and crisis: an ethnographic case study of the digitalisation of general practice work between 2020-2024
Thesis / Dissertation
Dakin F., (2025)
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Technostress, technosuffering, and relational strain: a multi-method qualitative study of how remote and digital work affects staff in UK general practice
Journal article
Dakin FH. et al, (2025), British Journal of General Practice, 75, e211 - e221
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International healthcare workers’ experiences and perceptions of the 2022 multi-country mpox outbreak
Journal article
Apea V. et al, (2025), PLOS Global Public Health, 5
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Challenges to quality in contemporary, hybrid general practice: a multi-site longitudinal case study
Journal article
Payne R. et al, (2025), British Journal of General Practice, 75, e1 - e11
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Patient safety in remote primary care encounters: Multimethod qualitative study combining Safety i and Safety II analysis
Journal article
Payne R. et al, (2024), BMJ Quality and Safety, 33, 573 - 586
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Access and triage in contemporary general practice: A novel theory of digital candidacy
Journal article
Dakin FH. et al, (2024), Social Science and Medicine, 349
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Quality framework for remote antenatal care: qualitative study with women, healthcare professionals and system-level stakeholders
Journal article
Hinton L. et al, (2024), BMJ Quality and Safety, 33, 301 - 313
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Cross-sectional survey of sexual health professionals' experiences and perceptions of the 2022 mpox outbreak in the UK
Journal article
Hayes R. et al, (2024), BMJ Open, 14
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The place of remote consultation in modern general practice
Journal article
Payne R. and Dakin F., (2024), British Journal of General Practice, 74, 7 - 8
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Training needs for staff providing remote services in general practice: a mixed-methods study
Journal article
Greenhalgh T. et al, (2024), British Journal of General Practice, 74, e17 - e26