Ed Smith

Ed has had considerable experience in top roles within the UK’s publicly-funded healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS). He is the former Chairman of NHS Improvement and Deputy Chairman of NHS England, two of the most significant bodies overseeing patient care in the NHS, which together receive the majority of the Department of Health and Social Care’s core annual budget of around £160 billion. He remains involved in the NHS as Independent Chair of Birmingham Health Partners, a strategic alliance between the University of Birmingham and two NHS Foundation Trusts that is dedicated to applying healthcare innovations in clinical care. Additionally, Ed has held many senior positions within the private healthcare sector, currently sitting as Chairman of the Advisory Board at HCA Healthcare UK, the UK’s largest provider of privately-funded healthcare. Its parent company, HCA Healthcare, is the largest private healthcare provider in the world, operating around 200 hospitals and 2,000 sites of care across the UK and US. He is also an Independent Non-Executive Director at the video consultation provider Push Doctor – which offers services to 6 million NHS patients – as well as Chairman of Assura PLC, the UK’s leading real estate investment trust (REIT) for primary care medical centers. Prior to assuming his portfolio of healthcare roles, Ed spent 30 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in a variety of the top UK and international roles, including Strategy Chairman and Global Assurance Chief Operating Officer. Beyond the world of healthcare, he is Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of HS2 Ltd, which is developing the UK’s new High Speed Two (HS2) rail network, a project with a budget of roughly £100 billion.