Stephen Thornton is chief executive of The Health Foundation, an independent charity that wants to make the quality of healthcare in the U.K. the best it can be. Working with others, it is helping to shape a future healthcare system that offers safe, effective, and responsive care for all. It is a charitable foundation and operates independently from government, political parties, or other interest groups. He has 30 years’ management experience in the National Health Service, having worked at hospital, community health, health authority, regional and national levels of the service.

He spent five years as Chief Executive of Cambridge & Huntingdon Health Authority and five years as Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, the membership body for NHS organisations, negotiating directly with ministers on issues concerning the management of the health service. He has been a Non-Executive Director of Monitor (the independent regulator of NHS Foundation trusts) since October 2006. He was a member of the NHS Modernisation Board 2001/02 and a Commissioner on the Board of The Healthcare Commission 2003/06. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and was appointed a CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours List. He was appointed to the National Quality Board as a Clinical Expert in March 2009.