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Judith Smith

Professor of Health Policy and Management, University of Birmingham

Judith is a highly experienced and widely published health services researcher and policy analyst. She took up post as Director of the Health Services Management Centre (HSMC) and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Birmingham on 1 June 2015. This followed six years spent as Director of Policy at the Nuffield Trust, an independent charitable health research foundation in London.

Earlier in her career, Judith spent 12 years at HSMC, holding the positions of Senior Lecturer, Director of Research, and Academic Director of the NHS Management Training Scheme. From 2007 to 2009, Judith was based in New Zealand as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Health Services Research Centre of Victoria University of Wellington and working as an advisor to the New Zealand Ministry of Health. Early in her career she was a senior manager in the NHS, and successfully completed the NHS graduate management training scheme. Judith is a Non-executive Director of the Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, an Honorary Professor 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 have included being an expert advisor on NHS organisation and commissioning, and policy assessor to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, a member of the board of the UK Health Services Research Network and the European Health Management Association, and chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Commission on Models of Care.

NHS ten-year plan for England: what’s in it and what’s needed to make it work

Jul 06, 2025 12:10 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics

The UK government has published its eagerly awaited ten-year health plan for England, setting out how billions of pounds in NHS funding will be used to transform healthcare delivery across the country. As anticipated, the...

Is the crisis in the NHS as bad as the Red Cross says it is?

Jan 11, 2017 15:42 pm UTC| Insights & Views

There have been many warnings over the past few years about the problems facing the NHS and social care. But the British Red Cross is the first to describe the situation as a humanitarian crisis. The Red Cross is one of...

Economy

Trump Opens Tax-Exempt Dyed Diesel Access as Fuel Prices Surge

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday expanding access to tax-exempt dyed diesel as soaring fuel prices and global oil supply disruptions put pressure on American consumers and businesses. Under...

Australia Consumer Confidence Plunges as RBA Rate Hike Hits Households

Australian consumer confidence fell sharply in October as households grew increasingly worried about rising living costs, higher interest rates, personal finances and the jobs outlook, according to data released Tuesday by...

Samsung, SK Hynix Shares Fall Ahead of Q3 Earnings

Shares of South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix declined on Tuesday as investors turned cautious ahead of their third-quarter earnings reports, despite broader strength across the global semiconductor...

Asian Currencies Steady as Dollar Holds Near 18-Month High

Asian currencies traded mostly flat on Tuesday as the U.S. dollar remained close to an 18-month high, supported by elevated Treasury yields and persistent inflation concerns. The euro stayed under pressure near a 17-month...

Asian Stocks Rise as Nasdaq Record Offsets Bond Yield Pressure

Asian stocks traded mostly higher on Tuesday, supported by a record close on the Nasdaq, although surging U.S. Treasury yields and elevated oil prices kept investors cautious. Wall Street provided a positive lead after the...

Politics

Trump Envoy Meets Sudan Army Chief in Egypt

A senior envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump attended an event in Egypt alongside Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as Washington continues efforts to find a political solution to Sudans devastating civil war....

France Student Protests Intensify Nationwide

France faced widespread high-school blockades and union-backed demonstrations on Tuesday as students stepped up pressure on President Emmanuel Macrons government over teacher shortages, deteriorating school buildings and...

Flavio Bolsonaro Surges as Family Scores Brazil Election Comeback

Brazils election delivered a dramatic political comeback for the Bolsonaro family, even though former President Jair Bolsonaro was not on the ballot. Bolsonaro, 71, is under house arrest while serving a 27-year sentence...

Trump Gaza Peace Plan Stalls as Israel Retains Control

US President Donald Trumps Gaza peace plan remains stalled a year after its launch, with Israel retaining control over roughly two-thirds of the enclave and continuing near-daily strikes despite an October 2025 ceasefire....

Trump Orders Firing Squad Execution for Fort Hood Gunman

President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of former U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas. Pentagon spokesperson Sean...

Science

Blue Origin New Glenn Explosion Could Delay Launch Operations Until 2028

Blue Origin is facing a significant setback after a dramatic explosion involving its New Glenn rocket severely damaged a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. According to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, repairs to the...

Blue Origin New Glenn Rocket Explodes During Launch Pad Test, Delaying Space Ambitions

Blue Origin suffered a major setback after its uncrewed New Glenn rocket exploded during a launch pad test in Florida on Thursday, raising new challenges for Jeff Bezos space company as it competes with Elon Musks SpaceX...

SpaceX Delays Starship V3 Launch Ahead of Potential Record IPO

SpaceX on Thursday postponed the highly anticipated launch of its 12th Starship rocket test from Texas after technical issues interrupted the final countdown. The company now plans to attempt the Starship V3 launch again...

Trump Administration Releases New UFO Files and Apollo Mission Records

The U.S. Defense Department has released dozens of previously classified UFO-related files following an order from President Donald Trump, sparking renewed debate over unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and government...

China vs. NASA: The New Moon Race and What's at Stake by 2030

The space race is back and this time, its a direct competition between the United States and China for dominance on the lunar surface. NASAs Artemis II mission recently made history when four astronauts flew farther into...

Technology

Zcash Prepares for NU7 Upgrade as Zebra Gets Key Security Fixes

The Zcash network is moving closer to its NU7 upgrade following a series of Zebra releases focused on security, performance and network stability. According to an engineering update from the official Zcash Foundation X...

OpenAI, Anthropic Back Mandatory AI Breach Reporting in Australia

OpenAI and Anthropic said they would support Australian laws requiring artificial intelligence companies to report data breaches caused by AI agents, as lawmakers consider tougher AI regulation following several security...

DeepSeek Seeks $12 Billion Funding Round Backed by Tencent, CATL

Chinese artificial intelligence powerhouse DeepSeek is preparing to raise at least 80 billion yuan ($12 billion) in a major funding round backed by Tencent and battery giant CATL, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. DeepSeek...

Nvidia-Backed Reflection AI Launches Beam Open-Weight Model

Nvidia-backed startup Reflection AI has launched Beam, its first open-weight artificial intelligence model, as the U.S. company looks to challenge lower-cost Chinese AI models in coding and agentic tasks. Reflection AI...

Meta and Microsoft Cut Internal Claude AI Use

Meta Platforms and Microsoft are reducing their internal reliance on Anthropics Claude AI models as both technology giants encourage employees to adopt proprietary artificial intelligence tools, according to a report from...