Joanne Atkinson

Dr Joanne Atkinson

Faculty Pro Vice-Chancellor

Department: Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing

Joanne Atkinson is Head of Department for Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing. Joanne has been in leadership roles within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences since 2010. She is an expert in palliative and end of life care, following a career in this sphere of practice and she continues to work across these disciplines at a regional, national and international level.��She has a wealth of external experience in multi-professional health and social care workforce development.

Building on her doctoral studies, her research in palliative and end of life care is varied, collaborative and interdisciplinary. Specifically, her work has sought to move from the biomedical dominated model to understanding death and dying in it’s broadest social, historical and cultural contexts. Particularly, the discourses of death and dying underpin Joanne’s approach to research. Joanne is focused on building research capacity in this sector and has therefore been engaged in consultancy with national charitable organisations.

She is also a Trustee for a national cancer charity called mynewhair, leading the charity from a small-scale not-for-profit organisation into an international registered charity. Joanne is recognised as an expert in chemotherapy-induced hair loss and regularly invited to speak internationally. She is also on the ethics committee at St Cuthbert’s hospice.

��

Email Joanne

Key Publications

Development and Validation of the Family and Community Nursing Advanced Practice Scale, Unsworth, J., Oldman, C., Atkinson, J., Comparcini, D., Simonetti, V., Cicolini, G., Mikkonen, K., Tomietto, M. 1 Oct 2025, In: Journal of Clinical Nursing
Exploring UK residents’ views on substantive education reform: adversarially co-produced narratives indicate fluidity in support, Hudson, K., Mulholland, K., Croft, E., Benton, P., Stark, G., Littlefair, D., Atkinson, J., Johnson, S., Reed, H., Johnson, E., Johnson, M. 6 Oct 2025, In: Political Research Exchange
‘People ring because they’re frightened’: findings from a realist evaluation on the impact of timely responsive care at home at the end of life, McEwan, K., Atkinson, J., Clarke, A., Bate, A., Jeffery, C., Dalkin, S. 14 Jul 2025, In: BMC Palliative Care
Make Politics Work for Us: A Common Sense pathway to democracy that delivers, Johnson, E., Neal, C., Stark, G., Duffy, S., Robson, I., Reed, H., Meehan, P., Warnock, C., Atkinson, J., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 16 Jan 2025
The delineation of advanced-level practice within UK district nursing: a cross-sectional comparative study before and after policy implementation, Unsworth, J., Oldman, C., Atkinson, J., Comparcini, D., Simonetti, V., Cicolini, G., Mikkonen, K., Tomietto, M. 1 Sep 2025, In: International Nursing Review
What does transformation in Higher Education research culture look like? Evidence from action research within a diverse post-1992 department, Mulholland, K., Robson, I., Nichol, D., Counihan, C., Gray, W., Luke, C., Meller, S., Anderson, A., Heslop, K., Davies, J., Graham, P., Johnson, S., Hwang, S., Chan, W., Johnson, E., Hudson, K., Haighton, C., Littlefair, D., Defeyter, M., Kellehear, A., Atkinson, J., Johnson, M. 19 Sep 2025, In: Routledge Open Research
What principles ought to underpin ‘Radical Prevention Funds’? Ten principles capable of addressing social determinants to promote public health, Johnson, E., Duffy, S., Stark, G., Atkinson, J., Reed, H., Nettle, D., Wilkinson, R., Johnson, M. 8 Aug 2025, In: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Delivering Regional Renewal: Public support for bold change in North East transport policy, Thew, A., Littlefair, D., Stark, G., Robson, I., Atkinson, J., Reed, H., Johnson, E., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 14 Nov 2024
‘For Want of a Nail’: developing a transparent approach to retroduction and early initial programme theory development in a realist evaluation of community end of life care services, McEwan, K., Girling, M., Bate, A., Atkinson, J., Clarke, A., Dalkin, S. 3 Jul 2024, In: International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Providing ‘professionalism with compassion’; how the time for caring communication can improve experiences at the end-of-life at home, findings from a realist evaluation, McEwan, K., Atkinson, J., Clarke, A., Bate, A., Jeffery, C., Dalkin, S. 21 Dec 2024, In: BMC Palliative Care

PGR Supervision

Zoe Booth 'Discussing preferred place of death during the final hospital admission; exploring the experience of these discussions from the perspective of bereaved informal care givers and staff. Start Date: 01/10/2020