Breaking News: Helen Thomas to Step Down as CEO of DHCW. Don't Waste This Chance for True Renewal

Helen Thomas is to step down as chief executive of Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW), the body Wales built in 2021 out of the discredited NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) without replacing the people who had run it. Finally. It is the right decision, and it is years late.

CareNHS understands she told staff in an internal announcement this week. No public announcement has yet been made. In our view, she was pushed out by a new government that had run out of patience.

The question everyone in Welsh digital health is asking is why it took so long. The question that matters more is what happens next.

The same exit, twice

Thomas follows her predecessor at NWIS, Andrew Griffiths, out of the door. He stepped down in December 2019, after a 2018 Public Accounts Committee inquiry found NWIS running "archaic and fragile" systems, with a culture "the antithesis of open" and a data-centre outage every nine days. Thomas, NWIS's Director of Information since 2017, took over as interim director, and then as DHCW's founding chief executive. The rebrand changed the name, not the leadership.

On 9 December 2020 both of them, the outgoing director and the incoming one, were made honorary Professors of Practice by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, at the same ceremony where NWIS renewed its partnership with that university. For what achievements, exactly, the record does not say.

Between April 2021 and March 2026, DHCW's own accounts record about £919 million of public money passing through the organisation: £816 million of revenue spending and £102 million of capital. That is five years of DHCW alone. Add NWIS's last two years: £88.5 million in 2019-20, the year Griffiths handed over to Thomas, and £101.9 million in 2020-21 with Thomas in charge. The total comes to £1.11 billion in seven years, before counting a single earlier NWIS year or any NWIS capital spending.

In our view, Wales got remarkably little for it. The National Data Resource, the flagship Thomas led from her NWIS days, saw its forecast benefits cut from £151.5 million to £41 million while its cost rose from £57.2 million to £73.6 million. It is doubtful it will ever deliver any value. The intensive care system was found by an external review to be "not clinically acceptable in its current form". The data centres failed, again and again, year after year. Nine flagship programmes ended up under Welsh Government escalation at the same time, and four more were closed, paused or cut back. DHCW's own Director of Finance put its total demonstrated return at £0.5 million, in non-cash time savings, from a single system. A VAT error cost the Exchequer around £4.3 million in interest alone. And in April 2026 the Welsh Government escalated DHCW to Level 4, Targeted Intervention, over "concerns around delivery, accountability and leadership." That was the first time leadership had been named in the grounds.

On that record, we think Helen Thomas will be remembered as one of the worst chief executives the Welsh NHS has had, and among the least effective digital leaders any health system in these islands has produced. Her departure will be greeted with relief by many people who worked under her, and by many more who depended on what DHCW was supposed to deliver.

What she leaves behind

Thomas leaves an organisation without vision, direction or purpose. It is out of step with what patients, clinicians and the public expected of it. It has failed countless patients who waited for systems that never arrived or arrived not working.

She also leaves an organisation that has been hollowed out of technical ability. That is not a judgement on the people who work there. Many of them are capable, and they came to DHCW wanting to build something. It is a judgement on what was done to them. There was no career path and no meaningful budget for upskilling. Direction did not come from the top. Leadership was absent when it was needed and unresponsive when it was told things it did not want to hear. Good people learned helplessness, because their skill, energy and creativity went into work that leadership then squandered.

DHCW's own staff survey shows what that does. In a single year, the share of staff confident that DHCW would act on their concerns fell from 84.8% to 59.2%. The share who felt safe to speak up fell from 84.8% to 62.8%. That collapse happened on a higher response rate. Days lost to sickness rose 82% in three years, to 15,846 in 2024-25, and more than half the workforce took sickness absence that year. All the while, DHCW was collecting workplace wellbeing awards. Stress and anxiety are now the largest single cause, at 5,209 working days lost in a year. In September 2026 the board heard that sickness had hit its highest level in twelve months.

Under Thomas, mediocrity and passivity became virtues. Anyone who pushed for real change met resistance first, then was undermined, and in some cases lost their job. She leaves behind a trail of careers ended or stalled, belonging to people who dared to want something bigger and better for digital healthcare in Wales, and who were treated as a threat for it. We will be writing about specific cases, with details, in the coming months.

She did not do this alone. She surrounded herself with a like-minded circle and built the organisation in its image. Three members of her executive board took honorary Professor of Practice titles from the university that was also DHCW's landlord. Asked whether that relationship had been weighed as a conflict of interest, DHCW replied only that "the WIDI agreement and the lease agreement are two separate agreements." Her medical director, Rhidian Hurle, has out-earned her on salary in four of the five years. His official biography on DHCW's own board page signs off as "Professor Rhidian Hurle": the plain academic title, with neither "honorary" nor "of Practice" attached, for an honorary title from that same landlord university. The same biography opens by calling him "Mr Rhidian Hurle". In our view, too many of those at the top have shown more care for their prestige, power and pay than for DHCW's stated mission of helping Welsh patients and clinicians.

She leaves with a pension that DHCW's own accounts value, as a cash-equivalent transfer value, at £1.8 million. That has risen by 71% across the years in which DHCW went from routine oversight to Targeted Intervention.

Why the wrong people rose

One of the fatal mistakes of DHCW under Thomas was putting stakeholder management and political savvy above technical expertise.

Recruitment for key technical roles prized the wrong qualities. Experts were driven out, and political players took their places: people skilled at managing perceptions rather than delivering anything. The result was an organisation fluent in reassurance and short of the ability to build. It reported 94% of its milestones delivered in the same year it was escalated for "repeated failure to deliver".

That mistake cannot be repeated.

What happens next is what matters

Pushing Thomas out was the right decision by the new government. It is not, on its own, a reform. The test for Mabon ap Gwynfor, as Cabinet Minister for Health and Care, starts now:

Who replaces her? If the answer is another chief executive from the same network, chosen for the same qualities, then nothing will change. The NWIS-to-DHCW rebrand already ran that experiment, and Wales has spent five years and nearly a billion pounds learning the result. It is now further behind England and comparable small countries than it was when DHCW was founded.
Who else goes? Thomas did not run DHCW alone. If the rest of the circle stays in place, the organisation will keep running in the same direction, further into the ground.
What else changes? An independent well-led review of DHCW is due to report by the end of November. It must be published in full, and its findings must drive the next decisions rather than follow them.

DHCW cannot simply be repainted. Its next chief executive must be:

A technical leader with a proven record. The job needs someone who has delivered large-scale digital transformation and turned around large, failing organisations.
Open to candidates from outside the NHS. NHS experience is not necessary. Technical and leadership excellence is.
Given real authority. The new chief executive needs a clear vision, and the power to rebuild the whole structure from top to bottom where that is needed, not just the floor they inherit.

Helen Thomas's departure is good news, and it is years late. Plaid Cymru now holds the one thing the last government never used: a clean break. Please don't waste this chance for true renewal.

Sources

Senedd Public Accounts Committee, 2018 inquiry into NWIS: see What is DHCW?
University of Wales Trinity Saint David, University of South Wales and NWIS press releases, 9 December 2020 (Professors of Practice): see The Professors of DHCW
DHCW total expenditure 2021-22 to 2024-25: DHCW response to FOI/6781535, 15 May 2026. Capital expenditure and 2025-26 figures: DHCW Annual Reports and Accounts 2021-22 to 2025-26 (Performance Report, financial performance section).
NWIS expenditure 2019-20 and 2020-21: NWIS was hosted by Velindre University NHS Trust and reported as the "NWIS" segment in the Trust's accounts. Velindre University NHS Trust, Annual Accounts 2020-21, Operating Segments note (NWIS total operating expenses: £101,929k in 2020-21; £88,461k in 2019-20). Confirmed in the 2019-20 accounts (Operating Segments) and the 2021-22 accounts (Operating expenses: "NWIS expenditure reported in 2020/2021 totalled £101,929k").
National Data Resource benefits and costs: DHCW response to FOI/6695830. See The Empty Platform.
WICIS external review: see Celebrating the 5-Year Crash Against Reality.
Level 4 escalation, 8 April 2026: DHCW Portfolio Delivery Committee papers, 30 April 2026 (Escalation Status Update). Welsh Government, DHCW oversight and escalation framework, May 2026.
Staff survey, sickness absence, VAT interest, remuneration and pension figures: DHCW Annual Report and Accounts 2025-26. See Deeper Into Delusion.
£0.5 million demonstrated return: DHCW Director of Finance, Welsh Government public accountability meeting, January 2026. See £600 Million In. £0.5 Million Out and What They Admitted.
Nine escalated programmes and four closed, paused or descoped: Welsh Government Level 3 Escalation Framework, May 2025; DHCW Annual Report 2024-25. See Nine Programmes, Zero Results.
Sickness absence 2021-22 to 2024-25: DHCW Annual Reports. See Best Place to Work(-Related Stress).
Technium 2 lease and the "two separate agreements" answer: DHCW response to FOI/6781535.
Rhidian Hurle's board biography: DHCW, Meet the board: Rhidian Hurle, as viewed 16 October 2026.

Digital Health and Care Wales is under Level 4 (Targeted Intervention) by the Welsh Government. CareNHS invites responses from Digital Health and Care Wales and from Helen Thomas on the matters raised in this article. If received, we will publish them in full.

Last reviewed: October 2026

Questions & Answers

Is Helen Thomas stepping down as chief executive of DHCW?

CareNHS understands that Helen Thomas told Digital Health and Care Wales staff in an internal announcement in the week of 12 October 2026 that she will step down as chief executive. No public announcement had been made by DHCW or the Welsh Government at the time of publication. In CareNHS's view, she was pushed out by the new government.

How much public money did NWIS and DHCW spend under Andrew Griffiths and Helen Thomas?

On their own audited accounts, about £1.11 billion over seven years. NWIS spent £88.5 million in 2019-20 and £101.9 million in 2020-21 (Velindre University NHS Trust accounts, Operating Segments note). DHCW then spent £918.6 million from 2021-22 to 2025-26, made up of £816.2 million revenue and £102.5 million capital. The total does not include earlier NWIS years or NWIS capital spending.

How much is Helen Thomas's NHS pension worth?

DHCW's Annual Report and Accounts 2025-26 value her pension at a cash-equivalent transfer value of £1.804 million at 31 March 2026. That is up £170,000 in the year, £142,000 of it employer-funded, and up from £1.052 million four years earlier: a 71% rise across the years in which DHCW went from routine oversight to Targeted Intervention. Her salary was £170,000-£175,000, and her reported total remuneration, including the accounting value of pension growth, was £275,000-£280,000.

What return has DHCW shown for the public money it has received?

At the Welsh Government's public accountability meeting in January 2026, DHCW's Director of Finance put DHCW's total demonstrated return at £0.5 million, in non-cash time savings from a single system. Against approximately £600 million of Welsh Government funding since April 2021, that is about 83p for every £1,000. The £600 million counts Welsh Government funding only. DHCW's total spending over the same five years was £918.6 million, because it also receives income from health boards and other NHS bodies for the services it provides.

How many DHCW programmes have failed, been cancelled or been delayed?

The Welsh Government's escalation framework of May 2025 named nine programme areas where DHCW had to demonstrate delivery. These included the NHS Wales App, the National Data Resource, radiology and laboratory systems, GP system migration, digital prescribing, intensive care and cancer informatics. DHCW's 2024-25 Annual Report records four programmes closed, paused or cut back. Digital Maternity Cymru was closed. The National Digital Eye Care Programme was paused. The Welsh Intensive Care Information System was paused pending an external review that has not been published. The Welsh Nursing Care Record for paediatrics was cut to design only. In September 2026, DHCW's strategy director told the board that more than half of the year's milestones now fall in the final quarter.

How burnt out is DHCW's workforce?

Days lost to sickness at DHCW rose from 8,684 in 2021-22 to 15,846 in 2024-25, an 82% increase while headcount grew by about 30%. In 2024-25, 53.25% of staff took sickness absence, and long-term sickness had risen 59% in three years. Stress and anxiety are the leading cause of lost working days: 5,209 days in 2025-26. In September 2026 the board was told sickness had reached 'the highest level in the last 12 months, with increases in stress, anxiety, depression'. Its vice chair called the plan to pile more than half the year's milestones into the final quarter 'a recipe for staff burnout'. Staff confidence that DHCW would act on their concerns fell from 84.8% to 59.2% in a single year.

What should happen after Helen Thomas leaves DHCW?

CareNHS argues that DHCW needs a technical chief executive with a proven record in large-scale digital transformation and organisational turnaround, who need not come from the NHS, and who is given the authority to rebuild the organisation. The independent well-led review due by the end of November 2026 should be published in full, and the rest of the leadership circle should not be left in place.