Tara Hughes

I am a doctoral researcher in the Department of Health and Community Sciences, the PhD project is a collaboration between the University of Exeter and Hourglass, the UK’s only charity focused on the abuse and neglect of older people. The PhD project which started in 2026 will harness the national helpline data collected by Hourglass to better understand, identify and prevent the abuse of older people. The PhD project is supervised by Rob Anderson, Gary Abel and Danny Tatlow. 

My professional background prior to beginning the PhD included several roles within preventative social care, community development and transformational change within health and social care, working on a local and regional footprint in Wales. 

I have also previously worked within the Administrative Data Research (ADR) Wales funded Social Care research team within Swansea University and Social Care Wales. Where my role involved building collaborative networks and opportunities across Wales to acquire adult social care data into the SAIL Databank to make use of that data for priority research within adult social care.