Professor Judith Smith

An expert on the NHS, health policy, primary care and general practice, health funding and commissioning, healthcare leadership and management. Professor Smith is the Director of the Health Services Management Centre and was previously Director of Policy at the Nuffield Trust, an independent charitable health research foundation in London.

English (native speaker) 

French (fluent speaker)

As Director of Policy of a major national health research foundation (2009-2015), my work entailed extensive communication and influencing activity with government, the media, the Department of Health, national representative organisations, and local health and social care bodies.  I continue to undertake this work from my position as Director of HSMC at the University of Birmingham.  

I regularly provide background briefings, write articles and prepare blogs for the print and on-line media.  I have written for the Guardian, Health Service Journal, British Medical Journal, and the Conversation.  I also regularly give interviews to the media, and have appeared on BBC News, BBC News 24, The World Tonight, File on Four, Five Live News, and numerous BBC local news stations.

Health and Social care

Professor Judith Smith is an expert on the NHS, health policy, primary care and general practice, health funding and commissioning, healthcare leadership and management.

Judith’s standing in the academic and policy community has been recognised in a number of ways. For example, in 2020 she was asked to form part of two new Colleges of Experts established by UKRI and NIHR to review and fund research commissioned rapidly to understand the Covid-19 pandemic and its implications for health and social care service delivery and organisation in both the UK and global contexts. 

Shewas expert adviser on NHS organisation and commissioning to the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, prepared four expert inquiry papers, gave two days of oral expert evidence to the inquiry, and presented at two of the inquiry policy seminars (on commissioning, and trust boards and their leaders).  In November 2012, she was appointed by Robert Francis QC to be an assessor to the Inquiry in relation to policy recommendations. 

Judith has given oral evidence to the Health Select Committee of the House of Commons as part of inquiries into: public expenditure on health; the implementation of the Coalition Government’s health reforms; and care for people with long-term conditions.  She gave oral evidence to the House of Lords 2013 Inquiry into the Inquiries Act, exploring her experience of being an expert adviser and assessor to the Francis Inquiry. 

She was Independent Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Commission on Future Models of Care which resulted in a publication, launched at a Parliamentary conference chaired by Sarah Wollaston MP (Chair of the Health Select Committee), setting out a new direction for pharmacy in England. 

Judith is a Non-Executive Director of the Birmingham Women and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (2014-), where she is also the Chair of the Trust’s Research and Service Innovation Committee, and a member of the Quality Committee, Audit Committee, and Ethics Advisory Group.  

Judith provides regular advice to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England & Improvement in relation to primary care, integrated care, health commissioning, and wider health policy and governance issues.  She also works closely with bodies such as NHS Providers, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, National Voices, the National Association of Primary Care, NHS Confederation and the medical royal colleges.

She is listed as an expert in the University of Birmingham Policy experts guide.