Betsi Cadwaladr: Sorting out health board could take decade, says chair

Dyfed Edwards is the former leader of Gwynedd council

Making the improvements needed to the troubled Betsi Cadwaladr health board could take as long as a decade, its interim chairman has said.

The body providing north Wales health services was put into special measures for the second time in February, with eleven board members forced to resign.

On Thursday, Dyfed Edwards said that making the changes required was "almost like creating a new health board".

This would "probably" take five to 10 years, he told Senedd members.

The Welsh Conservatives said this was an "extraordinary admission" while Plaid Cymru repeated its call for an inquiry into "what's been going wrong at Betsi".

• Does this woman have the toughest job in Wales?

• Health board director was overpaid, says auditor

• More deaths may be due to health board treatment

Betsi Cadwaladr, Wales' biggest health organisation, has a workforce of 19,000 serving more than 700,000 people across Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham.

It is receiving the highest level of Welsh government support after a succession of serious failings on patient safety, performance and governance, together with staff shortages and a series of senior executives coming and going.

But Mr Edwards said there was now "an opportunity for us to help almost reset the health board, not just refresh, but reset".

"It's almost like creating a new health board and, in that sense, it's a great opportunity," he told the Senedd's Health and Social Care committee.

"It's a huge challenge, but it's an opportunity to say 'this is what we want to achieve, this is what we want the health board to deliver for the people of the communities of our region'".

The board was, Mr Edwards stressed, ensuring there was "continuing improvement", as the aim was to create "something much greater over the longer period".

He added: "This is probably a five to 10 year task, isn't it?"

Asked by the committee's chair, Conservative MS Russell George, if that meant being in special measures for up to a decade, Mr Edwards said that "probably wouldn't be a healthy sign" but "I don't have a problem with that".

"If it means the government are going to give us that focus, that's fine".

Carol Shillabeer, who was appointed Betsi Cadwaladr's new permanent chief executive earlier this month after serving in an interim role, appeared alongside Mr Edwards at the committee.

She was asked what more immediate success might look like, over the next six to 12 months.

"We'll be more effective as an organisation, we'll have more effective leadership and engagement, we'll have more effective [and] clearer plans, we'll be performing better [with] continuous improvement," she said.

"And we will be focusing on our learning, our development, our research, our training and investing in our staff."

North Wales Conservative spokesman Darren Millar said Mr Edwards had made an "extraordinary admission", and that despite the "huge challenges" patients "cannot afford to wait up to another decade before they get the services they need".

"The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board already holds the record for being in special measures for longer than any organisation in the history of the NHS," he said.

"It is abundantly clear that the Welsh Labour government is failing people in north Wales and that their intervention arrangements aren't working," he said.

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said his party's "long-standing call for an inquiry into what's been going wrong at Betsi would help provide a blueprint for a better health service in north Wales".

Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: "You must learn from past mistakes when preparing for the future."