Francisca Vargas Lopes joined the Trust in October 2017 for an Academic Placement within the Research team. She is working on the quantitative research of ongoing projects at the Trust, in the priority areas of quality of care, new models of health care delivery, and health and social care reform.
In 2017 Francisca completed an MSc in International Health Policy and Health Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She wrote her Master’s dissertation on ‘The performance of Accident and Emergency (A&E) major departments in England: modelling constraints to patient flow due to bed pressure using Hospital Episode Statistics’, while undertaking a placement with the ‘Health Value for Money’ team at the National Audit Office (NAO).
Before undertaking her Master’s degree, Francisca worked as an Outcomes Research Manager for a local affiliate of a multinational pharmaceutical company. Within this role, she was responsible for generating evidence to substantiate the value of innovative medicines, using methods such as cost-effectiveness and observational studies, among others.
Francisca’s work experience also includes time spent as a research analyst and consultant in academia, at the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon; and a trainee in Pharmacoepidemiology at the Centre for Health Evaluation and Research of the Portuguese National Association of Pharmacies. Francisca graduated as a Pharmacist (M.Pharm) in 2013 from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon.
Francisca left the Trust in February 2018.