Misconduct in Public Office

This page presents legal frameworks that may be relevant to the conduct of DHCW's leadership. These are arguments for investigation, not proven charges. No individual named on this page has been charged with or convicted of any offence. We present the frameworks, map them to the documented evidence, and argue that the cumulative weight of that evidence warrants formal investigation by the authorities with the power to conduct one.

1. Misconduct in Public Office (Common Law)

Misconduct in public office is a common law offence in England and Wales. It carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The elements, as established in Attorney General's Reference (No. 3 of 2003) [2004] EWCA Crim 868, are:

1. A public officer — acting as such.
2. In the exercise of their public duty — wilfully neglects to perform that duty, or wilfully exercises the power of their office for an improper purpose.
3. To such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the officeholder.
4. Without reasonable excuse or justification.

How the evidence maps to these elements

Element 1: Public officers acting as such. DHCW's CEO, executive directors, and board members are public officers. DHCW is a Special Health Authority constituted under the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006. Its leadership exercises statutory functions and public duties.

Element 2: Wilful neglect or exercise of power for improper purpose. The documented evidence includes:

• Presiding over systemic programme failure across all nine major programmes for a sustained period, while remaining in post and collecting awards and conference keynotes. CEO Helen Thomas and her executive team have held their positions throughout this period of failure. Every major programme DHCW has attempted to deliver has experienced significant delay or failure. The Welsh Government escalated the organisation to Level 3 — its highest intervention tier — in March 2025. No individual has faced visible consequences.

• Suppressing information. The Cabinet Secretary's follow-up letter of 12 February 2026 explicitly criticised a "pattern of late notification that undermines system confidence." Ruth Galzzard, Interim Chair, admitted the board receives information "late in the day." The PAC found in 2018 that the culture was the "antithesis of open" with choreographed testimony. Taken together, these findings describe a pattern of managing information flow to delay the moment when oversight bodies learn about failures — a pattern sustained across eight years and two organisational incarnations.

• Presenting misleading timelines to the Senedd. DHCW presented programme timelines to the Senedd committees in 2023 that the same committees described as exhibiting "over-optimism." At the January 2026 accountability meeting, CEO Helen Thomas acknowledged "optimism in terms of the plans and teams" and that "we need to do more discovery" — effectively conceding that the timelines previously presented lacked adequate foundation. The Senedd warned about optimism bias in July 2023; DHCW took nearly three years to acknowledge the failing.

Element 3: Abuse of public trust to such a degree. The scale is significant. Several hundred million pounds of public expenditure over five years. Every major programme failing. The only quantified benefit: £0.5 million in non-cash time savings. WPAS identified as a factor in at least one patient death. The Royal Colleges warning that patients "regularly experience delays that lead to worsening health." The CEO's own admission that the systems are not ready for another pandemic. At this scale, the question is whether the cumulative pattern — sustained failure, suppressed information, optimistic timelines, no individual accountability — amounts to an abuse of the public trust invested in these officeholders.

Element 4: Without reasonable excuse. DHCW inherited genuine legacy problems from NWIS. But it has now been in existence for five years. It has received sustained funding. It had a fresh mandate. It grew its workforce by 25%. The mitigating factors are real but they do not provide reasonable justification for the sustained pattern of failure, information suppression, and absence of accountability documented throughout this website.

2. Fraud Act 2006

The Fraud Act 2006 creates three offences relevant to public body leadership:

Section 2 — Fraud by false representation

A person commits fraud if they dishonestly make a false representation and intend, by making the representation, to make a gain or cause a loss.

Relevant evidence: DHCW presented programme timelines to Senedd committees and Welsh Government that were described by those same bodies as exhibiting "over-optimism." At the January 2026 accountability meeting, the CEO acknowledged that optimism bias was a factor and that more discovery was needed — an admission that the organisation had been presenting projections it did not have adequate grounds to believe. If programme timelines were presented to secure continued funding or avoid intervention while leadership knew those timelines were unreliable, the representation could meet the threshold of Section 2. The "gain" need not be personal enrichment — maintaining organisational funding, avoiding personal accountability, and preserving positions of office are all gains within the meaning of the Act.

Section 3 — Fraud by failing to disclose information

A person commits fraud if they dishonestly fail to disclose information which they are under a legal duty to disclose, and intend to make a gain or cause a loss.

Relevant evidence: The Cabinet Secretary's letter of 12 February 2026 criticised a "pattern of late notification" of risks. The Interim Chair admitted the board receives information it considers late. The identity of the independent digital expert appointed to assess DHCW has never been publicly disclosed — despite the organisation being under the highest level of government intervention. DHCW publishes zero whistleblowing disclosure data, zero disciplinary data, and zero leavers analysis. Several major contracts (Channel 3/Aire Logic NTA, Cisco HIMSS INFRAM, Atos review) have undisclosed values with no competitive tender notices on public procurement platforms. This pattern of non-disclosure is relevant to whether there exists a systematic failure to disclose information that oversight bodies — the Senedd, the Welsh Government, Audit Wales, and the public — are entitled to receive.

Section 4 — Fraud by abuse of position

A person commits fraud if they occupy a position in which they are expected to safeguard, or not act against, the financial interests of another person, and dishonestly abuse that position to make a gain or cause a loss.

Relevant evidence: The revolving-door appointment of Executive Director of Strategy Ifan Evans — who authored the Welsh Government's digital health strategy and then moved to DHCW to implement it, creating a structural conflict where he assesses the adequacy of his own strategic framework. The CEO credential accumulation sprint — BCS Fellowship, FedIP registration, honorary professorship, and a trade media award all within 18 months of appointment — timed to coincide with appointment positioning rather than sustained achievement. The 25% workforce growth that the CEO acknowledged produced no demonstrable patient benefit, but which expanded the organisational empire and pay bill. Whether these patterns constitute abuse of position depends on intent, which only formal investigation can determine.

3. Health and Safety at Work Act 1974

Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 imposes a duty on employers to conduct their undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment who may be affected are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.

DHCW does not treat patients directly, but it builds and maintains the systems through which patient care is delivered across all of NHS Wales. When those systems fail, patients are harmed.

Relevant evidence:

• WPAS and patient death. According to Employment Tribunal proceedings, WPAS was identified by a Health Board as a factor in at least one patient death and was considered their single biggest risk to patient safety. If DHCW leadership was aware of this risk and failed to take reasonably practicable steps to address it, the Section 3 duty may have been breached.

• WCCG unsupported for eight years. According to Employment Tribunal proceedings, the referral system connecting GPs to hospitals runs on technology unsupported for eight years, meeting no criteria for resilience or cybersecurity. If this system fails, every referral to secondary care in Wales stops. The technical team allegedly raised this risk with leadership for years without adequate response.

• eMPI outage mixing up patient records. According to Employment Tribunal proceedings, a catastrophic outage of the patient identity system caused patient records to be confused across Wales. Patients received wrong health communications; others missed invitations to life-saving treatments. This is a direct harm to patient safety resulting from a system failure within DHCW's responsibility.

• DHCW's own admission. DHCW acknowledged in its own documentation that its digital environment "ultimately increases the risk of harm to patients." This is the organisation itself recognising that the systems it maintains create patient safety risks — a recognition that, if not adequately acted upon, is relevant to the Section 3 duty.

The Health and Safety Executive or local authority enforcement bodies have the power to investigate whether DHCW's management of these systems meets the "reasonably practicable" standard required by the Act.

4. Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 / Employment Rights Act 1996, Section 43B

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), which amends the Employment Rights Act 1996, provides statutory protection for workers who make "qualifying disclosures" in the public interest. A qualifying disclosure is one that, in the reasonable belief of the worker, tends to show that:

• A criminal offence has been committed, is being committed, or is likely to be committed;
• A person has failed, is failing, or is likely to fail to comply with a legal obligation;
• A miscarriage of justice has occurred, is occurring, or is likely to occur;
• The health or safety of any individual has been, is being, or is likely to be endangered;
• The environment has been, is being, or is likely to be damaged; or
• Information tending to show any of the above has been, is being, or is likely to be deliberately concealed.

Section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that a worker has the right not to be subjected to any detriment by any act of their employer done on the ground that the worker has made a protected disclosure. Section 103A provides that dismissal is automatically unfair if the reason or principal reason is that the employee made a protected disclosure.

Relevant evidence:

According to Employment Tribunal proceedings, at least two senior employees were allegedly dismissed from DHCW after raising concerns about delivery failures, financial waste, and patient safety risks. The concerns they allegedly raised — about programme underdelivery, system safety risks, and leadership conduct — were subsequently confirmed, in substance, by the Welsh Government's own Level 3 escalation in March 2025.

If these allegations are substantiated, DHCW dismissed protected whistleblowers. The statutory protections of PIDA exist precisely to prevent this outcome. When the concerns raised by whistleblowers are later validated by the very government that oversees the organisation — when the Welsh Government confirms the failures that the dismissed employees were warning about — the case for investigating whether PIDA protections were violated becomes compelling.

The Welsh Government's own "Speaking Up Safely" framework, which DHCW adopted, requires that no detriment be suffered by anyone raising a concern. DHCW publishes zero whistleblowing disclosure data. This combination — a framework promising protection and an organisation publishing no evidence that the framework has ever been invoked or applied — is itself relevant to whether the protections exist in practice or only on paper.

The Case for Investigation

We present these frameworks not as proven charges but as arguments for formal investigation. The evidence documented on this website — drawn from Senedd proceedings, Audit Wales reports, Welsh Government written statements, Royal Colleges briefings, DHCW's own accountability meeting admissions, and Employment Tribunal proceedings — reaches thresholds that warrant formal scrutiny by authorities with investigative powers that the public does not possess.

The questions that only investigation can answer include:

• Did DHCW leadership knowingly present unreliable programme timelines to the Senedd to avoid intervention?
• Were programme risks systematically delayed in reporting to the board and to Welsh Government, and if so, on whose authority?
• Were senior employees dismissed for raising concerns that the Welsh Government later confirmed, and if so, does this constitute a violation of PIDA protections?
• Does the sustained pattern of programme failure, information suppression, and absence of individual accountability — presided over by the same leadership through two organisational incarnations — amount to misconduct in public office?
• Has the management of patient-critical systems (WPAS, WCCG, eMPI) met the "reasonably practicable" standard required by the Health and Safety at Work Act?

When the evidence reaches these thresholds, the authorities with the power to investigate have a duty to do so. The Welsh public has invested several hundred million pounds in DHCW. The Royal Colleges have warned that patients are being harmed. The Welsh Government has confirmed that the organisation cannot deliver. The CEO has admitted that the systems are not ready for another pandemic and that no return on investment can be demonstrated. At least two senior employees have allegedly been dismissed for raising the alarm.

The question is no longer whether there is a case to answer. The question is who will ask the questions.

Source Note

Legal frameworks are summarised from primary legislation (Fraud Act 2006, Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Employment Rights Act 1996 as amended by PIDA 1998) and case law (Attorney General's Reference (No. 3 of 2003) [2004] EWCA Crim 868). Evidence mapped to these frameworks is drawn from Senedd proceedings, Audit Wales reports, Welsh Government written statements, DHCW's public accountability meeting of 29 January 2026, the Cabinet Secretary's letter of 12 February 2026, the Royal Colleges joint briefing of July 2025, and DHCW's own published documentation. Where claims derive from Employment Tribunal proceedings, this is explicitly stated; such allegations have not been independently verified from public records.