Dr Agnieszka Ignatowicz BSc (Hons), MA, PGCE, PhD

• PhD, University of Aston 2012
• PGCE, University of Birmingham 2011
• MSc in Sociology, University of Birmingham 2008
• BSc (Hons) in Combined Sociology and Human Psychology, Aston University 2007

Agnieszka's past research examined: (1) integrated care initiative for people with diabetes and those over 75 years through qualitative studies of change at organisational, clinician, and patient levels; (2) novel model of GP-led urgent care centre co-located within an emergency department using interviews and focus groups with healthcare staff; and (3) intervention around referral and admissions to intensive care though reviews of literature, observation of decisions and interviews with intensive care unit clinicians, referring clinicians, and patients and their families. Her research has led to significant advances in the understanding of how different initiatives deliver (or fail to deliver) expected benefits and support translation of the evidence for service changes, practice, and policy.

Agnieszka’s current work ties together these lines of research by investigating the optimal acute care delivery models. One of her research projects examines how acute medical services should be configured to meet the needs of patients during peaks of COVID-19 infections and more generally during periods of intense acute care activity in the NHS. Her other research explores the hospital at home (H@H) model and how it can deliver more acute non-COVID and COVID care for newly or already vulnerable homebound groups of patients. Her focus is on generating an iterative programme theory to describe and explain the complex processes and the effects of these models to learn which approaches are more likely to be associated with ‘resilience’ – the ability to meet the healthcare needs of the acutely ill population during times of high demand for care.

In addition to these projects, Agnieszka is collaborating with Prof Justine Davies and colleagues in four LMICs on research that aims identify needs, expectations and preferences of patients that have been injured and seek acute care. Specifically, she is co-leading a work package that explores the need for involvement of different stakeholders in developing and prioritising solutions, and the barriers and facilitators to their involvement. She is also leading on the research capacity building for this collaborative award.  

• Medicine and Surgery MBChB
• MSc Public Health
• MRes Clinical Health Research
• Intercalation PoSH BMedSci

Agnieszka has supervised two doctoral research students to completion and is currently supervising other.

Agnieszka is interested in supervising further doctoral research students who are planning to use qualitative methods within their research. Projects should focus on questions relating to her research interests. If you are interested, please contact Agnieszka directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

Research interests

Organisation and delivery of care; emergency and acute care; integrated care; healthcare work and professions, implementation of evidence-based practice; adoption and use of different technologies; and qualitative health research.

 Current and past projects

• Stepped Wedge Cluster Trial of Virtual Wards for Acute COPD Exacerbations – lead for process evaluation (funded by NIHR HS&DR Programme)
• Apixaban thromboprophylaxis to prevent venous thromboembolism in ambulatory lung cancer patients undergoing systemic anticancer treatment – lead for the process evaluation (funded by NIHR HTA Programme)
• Developing A Green Sustainability Framework For NHS Elective Surgical Hub – co- applicant (funded by Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare)
• Monogenic Obesity: exploring clinician’s, young person’s and their parent’s experiences of genetic testing – co-PI (funded by GMSA)
• Use of an electronic communications platform to improve pre-hospital transport of injured people (RWANDA912) – co-applicant and lead for implementation component (funded by NIHR RIGHT Programme)
• NIHR Global Health Group on Equitable Access to Quality Health Care for Injured People in Four Low- or Middle-Income Countries: Equi-injury – co-applicant and capacity building lead (funded by NIHR Global Health Groups Programme)
• Models Of Acute Care Resilience – co-applicant and project manager (funded by NIHR Policy Research Programme)
• Improving QUality of Anaemia Diagnosis – co-applicant and academic co-lead (funded by Vifor Pharma UK Ltd)
• How to utilise the potential of Hospital at Home to deliver more acute non-COVID and COVID care outside of hospital – co-applicant (funded by NIHR Policy Research Programme)
• Equitable access to quality trauma systems in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries. Assessing gaps and developing priorities – co-applicant (funded by NIHR Global Health Policy and Research Programme)
• Predictors and consequences of paid work following retirement in Sweden – co-applicant and lead for the qualitative component (funded by Swedish Research Council for Health and Working Life)
• Multi-centred validation of digital whole slide imaging for routine diagnosis – co-applicant and lead for the qualitative component (funded by NIHR HTA Programme)

Membership of committees

• Scientific Advisory Committee, NIHR/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham (non-clinical scientist)
• Qualitative Workstream, NIHR Methodology Incubator