Our Manifesto: Why We're Here and What We'll Do

Every GP visit, every prescription, every hospital appointment in Wales depends on digital systems built and maintained by a single organisation: Digital Health and Care Wales. There is no alternative provider. There is no competitor. When DHCW fails, the NHS in Wales cannot function.

DHCW is failing. And the people responsible face no consequences.

The Evidence

We have spent months assembling a case from public records — Senedd proceedings, Audit Wales reports, Welsh Government correspondence, DHCW's own accountability meetings, Employment Tribunal filings, and the testimony of people who worked inside the organisation. The picture that emerges is not one of bad luck or impossible complexity. It is a picture of leadership that has prioritised its own survival over its mission.

Nine programmes, all failing at once. In March 2025, the Welsh Government placed DHCW under its highest tier of intervention across every major initiative simultaneously. Eye care systems seven years late. Laboratory systems eight years in with one lab partially live. A social care platform with organisations trying to leave. A national patient app described by the Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Wales as "mired in delay, non-delivery." The CEO's own admission: "We don't have an ROI on all of our investments." Hundreds of millions spent. No demonstrated return.

Patients put at risk. The Royal Colleges have warned that digital fragmentation causes patients to "regularly experience delays that lead to worsening health." A hospital system used across all of Wales has been linked to at least one patient death. A national identity system outage mixed up patient records, with people receiving wrong communications and others missing invitations to life-saving treatments. These are not theoretical risks — they are documented harms.

A culture that punishes honesty. In 2018, a Senedd committee found DHCW's predecessor had a culture that was "the antithesis of open." Eight years later, that culture has not changed — it has been perfected. Senior employees who raised concerns about the very failures the Welsh Government later confirmed were allegedly removed. Their roles were downgraded. DHCW publishes zero whistleblowing data, zero disciplinary data, zero leavers analysis. The speaking-up policies exist on paper. The silence is enforced in practice.

Leaders who cannot be found. Directors hold consequential titles while maintaining no public presence whatsoever. A director-level salary vanished from published accounts without explanation. At least 23 off-payroll workers — collectively costing millions per year — make decisions and spend public money with no name, no published role, no accountability. The person responsible for programme delivery at an organisation under intervention for programme delivery failures cannot be identified by anyone outside the building.

Credentials built for the job, not earned through delivery. The CEO accumulated an honorary professorship, a professional fellowship, and an inaugural industry award within the eighteen-month window surrounding her appointment. The architect of Wales's digital health strategy moved to DHCW to implement it — and now reports on whether his own plan is succeeding. Six established leadership science frameworks describe DHCW's dysfunction with uncomfortable precision. This is not a mystery. It is a diagnosis.

What We Demand

Reform cannot come from within an organisation that has arranged itself to resist it. We make six demands of the Welsh Government, the Senedd, and the people of Wales:

1. Independent external review of DHCW's leadership, governance, and programme delivery — conducted by people with no prior relationship to DHCW or the Welsh Government. Not another internal assessment. Not another consultant's report commissioned by the people being assessed. A genuine, independent, public review.

2. Full transparency — publish all programme costs consolidated by initiative, the identities and roles of all off-payroll workers, and all board papers including those currently withheld. If DHCW has nothing to hide, this costs nothing. If it resists, that tells you everything.

3. Adoption of the NHS Service Standard with independent service assessments at every stage of programme delivery, as used in England and Scotland. No more self-assessment. No more marking your own homework.

4. An independent Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, external to DHCW, with statutory authority to investigate retaliation against whistleblowers. Not a policy document. Not a poster on a wall. An independent person with the power to protect the people who tell the truth.

5. Personal accountability statements for directors, modelled on the Senior Managers and Certification Regime used in financial services — so that every director is personally, publicly accountable for the functions they oversee and the outcomes they deliver.

6. A standing Senedd Digital Scrutiny Panel with independent technical expertise, capable of interrogating DHCW's claims with the same rigour that financial regulators apply to banks. The current oversight model — where DHCW reports on itself and the Senedd lacks the technical capacity to challenge those reports — has failed.

We Have a Plan

Criticism without alternatives is complaint. We have published a comprehensive reform blueprint — specific, implementable proposals for governance reform, leadership standards, programme delivery, technical strategy, culture change, and independent benchmarking. Every recommendation names a comparator organisation that has already done it. Every proposal comes with a mechanism for implementation and a measure for success.

Wales is not being asked to invent something new. It is being asked to adopt standards that England, Scotland, and comparable nations already meet. The reform blueprint shows exactly how.

Who We Are

We are citizens, former DHCW employees, NHS professionals, and members of the Welsh public. We are not motivated by personal grievance or political ambition. We are motivated by the conviction that the NHS is too important to be led by people who treat it as their personal property.

We have tried the proper channels. Concerns were raised internally. Whistleblowing policies were invoked. Evidence was presented to directors, to the CEO, to the Board. The response was silence, deflection, and retaliation. We will no longer wait for a system that has had years to self-correct and has chosen not to.

Everything we publish is sourced. Every claim is grounded in public records. Where we report allegations — including Employment Tribunal claims that are pre-hearing — we distinguish them clearly from established facts. We give those we criticise the opportunity to respond. We work within the law. We protect the identity of anyone who shares information with us.

What You Can Do

Read the evidence. Read the programme-by-programme breakdown. Read what DHCW's own leaders admitted under public scrutiny. Then decide for yourself whether this is acceptable.

If you have evidence of wrongdoing, waste, or misconduct — submit it securely. Your identity will be protected.

If you want to stand with us — join the campaign.

If you believe your elected representatives should act — write to your Member of the Senedd.

Share this manifesto. Share our articles. The more people who see the full picture, the harder it becomes to look away.

The Campaign for Responsible Leadership in NHS Wales is independent and non-partisan. We receive no public funding and have no political affiliation. We act solely in the public interest.