After qualifying in medicine from Birmingham University in 1974, I worked in NHS hospitals before joining Save the Children Fund (UK) and running a child health programme in Nepal. I then trained in public health in Oxford, undertaking a doctorate on the reasons for the epidemic of surgery for glue ear in the UK. The next three years were spent half time as a lecturer at the Open University writing a new distance-learning course 'Health & Disease' with a biologist, sociologist and economist, and half time as a Consultant in Public Health for Oxfordshire Health Authority. In 1985 I moved to a Senior Lectureship at the LSHTM, set up what is now the Department of Health Services Research & Policy in 1988 (which I headed for five years) and was promoted to a Chair in Health Services Research in 1995. I was Dean of Faculty from 1998 to 2003. In 1996, together with Nicholas Mays, I established the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy which we edited jointly until 2017. I was elected and served as the first Chair of the UK Health Services Research Network from 2005-8. I chaired the National Advisory Group for Clinical Audit & Enquiries from 2008-16, providing advice to the DH and NHS England, and have served on several other national and international advisory bodies on quality assessment and improvement, playing a leading role in the adoption of patient reported outcome measures. In 2017 I was awarded a knighthood for services to healthcare research.

In 2022 I published my first novel, The Honourable Doctor, details of which appear on my website, www.nickblackauthor.com .