Their Own Systems Went Down. Then They Admitted Everything

On the morning of the January 2026 public accountability meeting, DHCW's own systems went down. The Interim Chair opened with a joke about it. What followed was no joke: two hours of admissions that, taken together, amount to the most damning self-assessment any Welsh public body has delivered in recent memory.

This article presents what DHCW's own leaders said, in their own words, under public scrutiny. Every quotation is attributed by name, title, and forum. The quotes are presented in the order they occurred. [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026]

9:00am — The systems go down

The meeting had not yet begun. Across NHS Wales, clinicians were logging on. DHCW's own digital infrastructure — the systems the organisation exists to keep running — suffered an outage on the morning of the day it was called to account.

Ruth Glazzard, Interim Chair of DHCW, addressed it as the session opened:

"Some people have suggested we may have done that deliberately today, so we've had something to discuss with you."

— Ruth Glazzard, Interim Chair, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

The joke landed badly. For an organisation whose core function is to keep NHS Wales digital infrastructure running, an outage on the day it is called to account is not a coincidence worth laughing about. It is a data point. It tells the Welsh public something about the reliability of systems that clinicians and patients depend on every day.

No detailed root-cause analysis of the outage has been published. No indication was given of how many users were affected, which systems were disrupted, or what clinical impact — if any — resulted. The meeting moved on.

9:30am — The fragmentation revealed

Ifan Evans, DHCW's Director of Strategy, described the scale of the challenge the organisation was created to address:

"There are over 1,400 different systems in operation" across NHS Wales.

This is the fragmented estate that DHCW was created to rationalise — and that five years later remains essentially unreformed. Ruth Glazzard added that "around 80% of our resources are committed to those operational services. That's an incredibly high proportion of our resources spent on keeping the lights on."

Eighty per cent on maintenance. Twenty per cent for the transformation DHCW was specifically created to deliver. And of that transformation budget, not one programme has been delivered on time.

9:45am — The ROI admission

The most consequential exchange of the meeting. DHCW manages a portfolio of digital programmes with identifiable costs exceeding GBP 200 million. When asked to demonstrate what Wales has received in return, CEO Helen Thomas said:

"We don't have an ROI on all of our investments."

— Helen Thomas, CEO, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

This is not an accusation levelled by a critic. It is a statement made by the Chief Executive of the organisation responsible for those investments.

When pressed on the 25% growth in DHCW's workforce — from approximately 960 to approximately 1,200 staff — and what that growth had delivered, Thomas said:

"It would be lovely to sit here and be able to demonstrate the value."

— Helen Thomas, CEO, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

She then offered an analogy:

Measuring the return on digital investment, she argued, was like asking "what are the benefits of having electricity or having water available to run our services?"

The comparison is revealing. Electricity and water are utilities. Their value is not measured by ROI because they are essential infrastructure that simply works. DHCW's programmes, by contrast, are bespoke digital transformation initiatives — each with a defined scope, a budget, a business case, and promised benefits. They are not utilities. They are investments. And the person responsible for those investments has confirmed she cannot demonstrate their value.

10:00am — The App that nobody uses

The NHS Wales App was conceived in 2021-22 as a flagship citizen-facing digital service. The accountability meeting revealed what the headline figures conceal.

Nick Wood, Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Wales, did not mince words:

"[The NHS Wales App has] been mired in delay, non-delivery."

— Nick Wood, Deputy Chief Executive, NHS Wales, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

"People are clearly not adopting it, because it's not there for what they want it to be there for."

— Nick Wood, Deputy Chief Executive, NHS Wales, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

When Sam Hall, Director at DHCW, was asked to provide a timeline for when the App would reach critical mass:

"I think it's really hard to put a time point on when we'll hit that critical mass."

— Sam Hall, Director, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

Jeremy Miles, then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, responded:

"I'm not getting a great deal of confidence that we know what the critical path is for the app."

— Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

Helen Thomas conceded:

"I think that's a bit of a gap at the moment."

— Helen Thomas, CEO, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

A gap. In the critical path. For the flagship citizen-facing product. After years of development. And 653,000 people on NHS Wales waiting lists are excluded from the App's data. The people with the most urgent need for visibility into their care cannot use the App for that purpose.

10:15am — The unsustainable workforce

Between its creation in April 2021 and early 2026, DHCW's headcount grew from approximately 960 staff to approximately 1,200. That is a 25% increase — against an NHS Wales average of 2.7% — in a period during which none of its nine Level 3 programmes have been delivered on time or on budget.

A Welsh Government official stated plainly:

"That's obviously unsustainable. So, what's the organisation going to do to address that?"

— Welsh Government official, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

The CEO's response:

"Oh, yes."

— Helen Thomas, CEO, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

She agreed it was unsustainable. No plan was presented to reverse it. No headcount reduction target was offered. No link was drawn between the additional 240 staff and any specific programme outcome. The workforce grew by a quarter, the programmes continued to fail, and the CEO agreed, publicly, that this trajectory cannot continue.

10:30am — The only quantified benefit

Across the entire portfolio — nine programmes, over GBP 200 million in identifiable expenditure, five years of DHCW's existence, and over a decade of predecessor activity at NWIS — only one quantified benefit was cited.

Claire Osmundsen-Little, Director of Finance at DHCW:

"You will ask me, I know, is that cash on the table? No, it's not. But it is time saved."

— Claire Osmundsen-Little, Director of Finance, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

The figure was approximately half a million pounds in "equivalent savings." Not cash released. Not budget reduced. Not reinvested elsewhere. Time saved, translated into a monetary figure. Against over GBP 200 million in identifiable programme costs, the only benefit the organisation could quantify was a non-cash estimate of half a million pounds.

The ratio speaks for itself. (The full funding picture — approximately £600 million over five years, 83p return per £1,000 invested — is set out in £600 Million In. £0.5 Million Out.)

10:45am — The Board's own admission

One of the most corrosive failures in any public body is the failure to tell its overseers what is going wrong in time for them to act. DHCW has demonstrated a pattern of informing both its own board and the Welsh Government too late for meaningful intervention.

Ruth Glazzard, as Interim Chair, acknowledged this directly:

"We share your frustration as a board when things don't happen as quickly as possible, or we get informed in what we perceive to be late in the day."

— Ruth Glazzard, Interim Chair, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

The Chair of the organisation telling the Welsh Government that the board itself is not told things in time. If the board does not know, then the Welsh Government does not know. If the Welsh Government does not know, the Senedd does not know. If the Senedd does not know, the people of Wales do not know. Late notification is not an administrative inconvenience. It is a break in the chain of democratic accountability.

11:00am — "If we'd known, we'd never have started"

Perhaps the most sobering admission came from a Welsh Government official, who described the compounding cost of programme delays:

"There is a tipping point where, actually, if we have delays and reprofiling, the benefits reduce... the benefits might be zero by the end. If we'd have known that, we'd have never started."

— Welsh Government official, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

Read that again. A Welsh Government representative stated, in a public forum, that some of these programmes may produce zero benefit. And that had the government known this at the outset, the programmes would never have been commissioned.

This is not a warning about future risk. It is a retrospective verdict. The Welsh Government is contemplating the possibility that over GBP 200 million has been spent on programmes whose benefits have been entirely eroded by delay.

11:15am — Optimism bias, again

When asked to account for the persistent gap between what DHCW promises and what it delivers, Helen Thomas offered:

"Some of that will be around optimism in terms of the plans and teams... I think some of that is that we acknowledge we need to do more discovery."

— Helen Thomas, CEO, DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, 29 January 2026

Optimism bias. The same term the Senedd Public Accounts Committee warned DHCW about in July 2023 — over two and a half years earlier. The warning was issued. It was not heeded. The same pattern continued. The same excuse was offered again.

Discovery, in digital delivery methodology, happens at the beginning of a programme. DHCW's CEO is acknowledging the need for more discovery on programmes that have been running for years. This is not a minor process gap. It is an admission that programmes were initiated — and funded — without adequate understanding of what they would require.

What They Did Not Say

For all that was admitted at the January 2026 meeting, the following questions were never asked — or never answered:

• Why no one has been held accountable. Nine programmes under Level 3 intervention for over a year. No director has faced any publicly visible consequence.
• The total cost. The meeting discussed "approaching GBP 200 million" but the true total — including predecessor spending at NWIS, the GP system migration reversal, and off-payroll workforce costs — has never been consolidated and published.
• The whistleblower cases. At least two Employment Tribunal claims allege dismissals connected to the raising of concerns about the very failures discussed at this meeting. Neither case was raised or acknowledged.
• The off-payroll workforce. At least 23 individuals earning GBP 245 or more per day. Their names, roles, and costs were not discussed.

The Cabinet Secretary's verdict

In February 2026, following the accountability meeting, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care wrote to DHCW. The letter has been published:

"The organisation remains some distance from being able to consistently quantify return on investment, articulate realised benefits across Wales or demonstrate the scale of digital investment is matched by measurable improvements for citizens and clinicians."

— Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, letter to DHCW, February 2026

This is not a campaigner's assessment. This is the Welsh Government's own verdict on its own arm's-length body. DHCW cannot quantify its return on investment. It cannot articulate its benefits. It cannot demonstrate that what it spends is matched by what it delivers.

The people who said all of this were not opponents of DHCW. They were its overseers, its Chair, its CEO, its funders. They said it in public. They said it on the record. And now the people of Wales must decide what to do about it.

Right of Reply: CareNHS welcomes a response from DHCW to the matters raised in this article. No response has been received to date. Contact: carenhs@carenhs.org

All quotations in this article are sourced from the DHCW Public Accountability Meeting held on 29 January 2026, or from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care's letter to DHCW dated 12 February 2026. Both are public records.

carenhs.org is an independent public accountability campaign focused on NHS Wales digital infrastructure. We welcome corrections and responses from DHCW, the Welsh Government, and any individual named in this article. Contact: info@carenhs.org

Related pages:

• Nine Programmes, Zero Results — programme-by-programme analysis
• Financial Waste — The Evidence — the full financial picture
• Patient Safety — The Evidence — how these failures harm patients
• The Failing No One Names — the political dimension