Judith Smith is Senior Lecturer at the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests are concerned with primary care, commissioning, the development of health care organisations, and international health care. She is national director of the education programme for the NHS Management Training Scheme (MTS), and has recently successfully led a consortium of education providers in bidding to redesign and provide the MTS education programme for a further three years from 2004. She is co-author of Smith J & Goodwin N. The Formation of Primary Care Trusts in England: Lessons for Research and Practice (2004).