Nick Smith

About

I am a research fellow with over 20 years’ experience of conducting research. I have been based at the Centre for Health Service Studies since 2021.  Prior to that I worked at the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent, Nottingham Trent University, The Open University, and The University of Nottingham.  

My research, which adopts a mixed-methods approach, has focused on the outcomes of social care, supporting people who struggle to self-report to have their experiences included in research, care home settings, and supporting the adoption of research methods in social care practice.  Since 2010, I have also worked on the development and support of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT), an outcomes measure used internationally in research and evaluation to inform long-term care policy and practice.  More recently, I have embarked on work exploring social care co-operatives and embedded research in social care.  

My work has been funded by a range of organisations, including NIHR School for Social Care Research, NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research, the Norwegian Research Council and the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations.  

In addition to research, I lead training for ASCOT and run courses teaching researchers and practitioners to use the tools to measure outcomes, as well as providing consultancy on this both in the UK and internationally.  I also teach on an undergraduate course on understanding and synthesising research.