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. Prior to that, Judith was a senior manager in the NHS and had successfully completed the NHS Management Training Scheme. At the Nuffield Trust, her research focuses on the role and potential of physician groups, the development of commissioning in the NHS, and the quest for health system efficiency in the economic downturn. Over the period 2007-2009, Judith undertook a research fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She was also a Visiting Academic Fellow in the New Zealand Ministry of Health where she acted as an advisor on primary care reform, and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute in Canberra.