Axel Heitmueller has been appointed as the head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit and the PM’s expert adviser on delivery.
Heitmueller, who has been Keir Starmer’s expert adviser on health since June, will be appointed to head up the PMDU on a full-time basis.
In the role, Heitmeueller will also advise other ministers in government and “drive forward the government’s vision for national renewal to ensure more people get help with the cost of living and see a change in their bills, communities, and health service”, according to a statement published yesterday.
The role is a direct ministerial appointment and will be remunerated.
Initially created by Tony Blair in 2001, the PMDU was tasked with aiding the delivery of government “priority” objectives. From 2001-2005, it was led by Sir Michael Barber – who returned to No.10 in 2024 as an adviser to Starmer on effective delivery.
The unit was abolished in 2010 but revived in 2021. In September last year it was brought under the remit of the new chief secretary to the PM, Darren Jones, as responsibility for delivery moved from the Cabinet Office to No.10.
Just last month, Starmer told senior MPs of his frustration at the gap between "pulling levers" and delivery.
Who is Axel Heitmueller?
Before becoming Starmer’s health adviser seven months ago, Heitmueller was chief executive of Imperial College Health Partners, a non-profit organisation which brings together NHS providers of healthcare services, integrated care systems and universities across north west London, for nine years.
Heitmueller also has plenty of experience working in government, including a nine-month stint as director for strategy and innovation at NHS Test and Trace in the Department of Health and Social Care during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A decade earlier, Heitmueller worked in the civil service as deputy director and chief analyst in No.10, from 2008 to 2010, and expert adviser to the work and pensions secretary, from 2009 to 2010.
He was also a senior policy adviser in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit from 2006 to 2008 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, while his first government role was at the Department for Work and Pensions as an economic adviser.
Heitmueller also worked as executive director of strategy and business development at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, from 2010 to 2013.