The founder of Oak National Academy will lead a new “delivery unit” for the Department of Health and Social Care tasked with cutting hospital wait times and improving access to GPs.
Matt Hood has been appointed a senior adviser to health secretary Wes Streeting, Schools Week can reveal.
He will lead a new ‘delivery unit’ at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), tasked with “tracking and challenging” delivery of key NHS targets such as bringing down hospital waiting times and improving access to GPs.
A previous job advert for a director role of the delivery unit described it as bringing a “laser-like focus on delivering the reform needed to drive improvement generally across health and care and specifically on the three things that surveys show matter most to the public”.
It said the small team will include a mix of internal and external recruits, including those with knowledge of the health system but also “expertise on delivering strategic and cultural change and policy development and delivery”.
Hood has been appointed as a direct ministerial appointment – meaning his role will sit within the secretary of state’s office. He started the role, which is paid, last month.
DHSC said today Streeting as “made clear his plan for delivery during a period of reform and transformation of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
“Matt will work with the department’s Delivery Unit to help ensure that the Government and Department deliver on its commitments, coordinate across the health and care system and provide advice on emerging challenges.”
Hood, whose background is working in education, was approached for comment. The department said he has held “senior roles in public service delivery and brings direct experience of leading organisations during periods of significant change”.
Hood stood down from Oak, a government curriculum quango, earlier this year.
It is understood he has stepped away from other education positions too, including Ofsted’s curriculum reference group.
Hood’s husband, Josh MacAlister, was appointed children’s minister in September.
Since leaving Oak and prior to his new job, Hood was working with a charity to implement academy reforms in Australia.
Prior to Oak, he was chief education officer at teacher training provider Ambition Institute and was an assistant headteacher in Morecambe, after training with Teach First.
Hood was awarded an OBE for services to education in 2020.
Hood has precisely zero experience of delivering NHS services. This appointment brings our political class into further disrepute. Nomenklatura troughing.