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Portrait of Dan Hayes OBE
Photo: the group’s website

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Dan HayesOBE

Chief Executive, The Orders of St John Care Trust

Dan Hayes OBE is Chief Executive of The Orders of St John Care Trust, a not-for-profit care charity, and a National Care Forum board director.

BIOGRAPHY

Dan Hayes OBE is Chief Executive of The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT), a not-for-profit charity that runs care homes and housing schemes in Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Buckinghamshire. He has led the trust since September 2015 and announced its merger with The Fremantle Trust in February 2024.

Hayes trained in human resources. The National Care Forum records an HND in business management and a postgraduate diploma in human resources management, and he told Care Home Professional that his HR qualification came from Nottingham Trent University. He worked in HR in the NHS (community mental health, acute care and hospital closures), then briefly for Lincolnshire Police and in universities. He joined OSJCT as an HR manager in 2003, took an operational secondment in Oxfordshire after about four years, became county director for Oxfordshire at the end of 2008 and operations director in 2011.

In a 2018 interview with Care Home Professional he set out a plan to move the trust's mix of residents from 38:62 private to local-authority funding towards 50:50, paying for new homes from its own reserves. He said care workers' pay should sit well above the National Living Wage. In 2024 he told Caring Times that social care's absence from Labour's six election priorities sent a message about the importance the party attached to it.

Hayes is a board director of the National Care Forum, and wrote HSJ's "A day in the life of a social care CEO" in December 2022 for a series commissioned from the forum. He was appointed OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the social care sector.

About The Orders of St John Care Trust. OSJCT is a registered charity (no. 1048355) and one of the largest not-for-profit providers of social care in England; it announced a merger with The Fremantle Trust in February 2024. See its rank and history

CAREER

  1. 2019 – NOW

    Board Director · National Care Forum NOW

  2. SEP 2015 – NOW

    Chief Executive · The Orders of St John Care Trust NOW

  3. 2011 – SEP 2015

    Operations Director · The Orders of St John Care Trust

  4. 2008 – 2011

    County Director, Oxfordshire · The Orders of St John Care Trust

  5. 2003 – 2007

ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS AND APPEARANCES

COUNTED FOR THE RANKING

2 articles in the twelve months to 6 October 2026 (1 trade, 1 local).