Leadership
9 articles in this category.
Every AI Success in NHS Wales Has One Thing in Common: It Didn't Go Through DHCW
Wales became the first UK nation to deploy stroke AI nationally. It rolled out AI clinical scribes. It built an AI Commission and an AI Plan. None of the AI that worked was delivered by Digital Health and Care Wales — the national digital monopoly created to deliver exactly this. A look at who actually delivered, and why the monopoly was the bottleneck.
The Dark Triad: Anatomy of Institutional Betrayal
Institutions that invite candour and then punish the candid are not failing by accident — they are running a recognisable script. An essay on the psychology of institutional retaliation, read against the public record of NHS Wales.
The Digital Hype and Crash Wales
DHCW's directors saw the iceberg and held course. Across 37 board meetings and 2.6 million words of transcript, the board heard tens of warnings and admissions of failure from its own members — most of them deleted from the public record. Every programme that crashed had been flagged at the very first meeting.
Wales Deserves World-Class Digital Health Leadership. Here Is What That Looks Like
England's NHS App has 39 million users. The equivalent at Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW): 'mired in delay, non-delivery.' Same country. Same health service model. The difference is who leads. England hired a Credit Suisse technologist. Wales promoted from within.
The Failing No One Names: How DHCW Became Welsh Labour's Biggest Liability
Every party in the Senedd is talking about NHS waiting times. None of them are naming the digital infrastructure underneath — the organisation that handles every appointment, every referral, every prescription. That organisation is DHCW. And it is Labour's creation.
He Wrote the Strategy. Now He Marks His Own Homework
Ifan Evans spent 15 years in the Welsh Government, where he helped author A Healthier Wales. Then he moved to DHCW to implement it. Now he reports on whether his own plan is working. In any regulated industry, this would be a conflict of interest. At DHCW, it is the governance model.
Try to Find Who Runs DHCW. You Can't
Directors with no public profile, a salary that ceased to appear in the accounts, and 23 off-payroll workers no one can name. The person responsible for programme delivery at an organisation under government intervention for programme delivery failures cannot be found by anyone outside the building.
An Honorary Professorship, a Fellowship, and an Award — All Before the Programmes Failed
In October 2021, Helen Thomas received a 'Digital CEO of the Year' award at the inaugural ceremony. She had been CEO of DHCW for six months. Within eighteen months of her appointment, she had accumulated an honorary professorship, a BCS fellowship, a professional registration, and an industry award. The programmes she oversaw had accumulated delays, cost overruns, and delivery failures.
Six Frameworks, One Diagnosis: Why DHCW Cannot Self-Correct
DHCW's failures are not mysterious. They are textbook. Six frameworks taught in every serious business school in the world describe — with uncomfortable precision — exactly what has gone wrong and why no amount of funding will fix it until the leadership changes.