Judith Smith is an experienced and widely published health services researcher and policy analyst. Before joining the Nuffield Trust in February 2009, she spent 14 years working at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, where she was Senior Lecturer and Director of Research and Academic Director of the NHS Management Training Scheme. Prior to that, Judith was a senior manager in the NHS.

At the Nuffield Trust, she leads a team whose research focuses on the quest for better integrated care, the role and potential of physician organisations, the development of commissioning in the NHS, and the search for health system efficiency in the economic downturn.

Judith has a first degree in Modern Languages, an MBA from the Open University Business School and a PhD in health policy and management from the University of Birmingham.

She is visiting senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Judith's other roles include being a member of the board of the UK Health Services Research Network, and expert advisor on NHS organisation and commissioning to the Mid-Staffordshire Public Inquiry.