Medical Lead and Vice Chair

Dr Mark Smithies

Having begun his NHS consultant career at Guy’s Hospital, Mark moved to the University Hospital of Wales in 1994, becoming Director of Intensive Care Services across the three hospitals in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. He developed a Paediatric Intensive Care service for Wales, with PICU and national retrieval service, which was the first commission by the newly devolved Welsh Assembly Government. ​Mark and his team collaborated in multiple clinical studies with partners across the globe, developing new drugs and treatments  including the ground-breaking nitric oxide therapy, and he was the first ICU Director to employ a psychologist to work on the wellbeing of staff and patients. 

He has authored numerous papers in The Lancet, NEJM, BMJ, JAMA etc, and was Editor of Intensive Care Monitor for twenty years. He developed and launched the Wales Assisted Ventilation Service in 2021, for patients requiring prolonged ventilation following critical illness. His inspirational leadership propelled him into NHS management as Director of Cancer Services, and then of Primary Care and Community Services in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. He was a founder member of HCSS in 2007, working alongside his mother Dr Alison Smithies, and has worked in Wiltshire as a Board of member of its NHS Clinical Commissioning Group.