Covid inquiry: Emails of former Welsh NHS staff deleted

Welsh NHS emails that could have been provided as evidence to the Covid inquiry have been deleted by mistake.

Inactive accounts used by staff who no longer work in NHS Wales or who have moved to different organisations have been wiped.

The news alarmed Plaid Cymru, which warned crucial information on Wales' pandemic response may never see the light of day.

An NHS IT organisation said it was working on recovering the data.

It is not known how many email addresses were impacted by the problem, caused by an incorrect setting that determines when emails are deleted.

The issue emerged in an agenda to a meeting of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board which, alongside other Welsh health boards, is a core participant in the ongoing Covid inquiry.

The health board document said the issue affected "all health boards".

The document said an issue had been identified by the IT organisation Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) which affected "inactive account mailboxes".

"As a result of retention policies not correctly applied, a number of mailboxes for staff who no longer work in NHS Wales, or who moved organisations, have been deleted, which means that their information cannot be retrieved as evidence," it said.

The document said the issue was permanently fixed at the end of March 2023. But despite that, it said it "does affect some of evidence we (and all health boards) would have been able to provide to the inquiry".

In a statement, DHCW - a body set up in 2021 to improve the use of technology in the Welsh NHS - said it was "working with the affected health boards and trusts on a workaround for recovering the deleted emails by searching other mailboxes for information which was sent to or from the affected user's mailbox, which will allow organisations to assist with any investigation or inquiry".

DHCW said it had notified the Covid inquiry, and since identifying the issue had implemented a "permanent fix" so inactive user accounts were in line with a standard policy which keeps emails for seven years.

In a letter to the Labour health minister Eluned Morgan, Plaid Cymru's Mabon ap Gwynfor said it was "essential that lessons are learned from this regrettable error as quickly and as effectively as possible".

Calling for a formal statement on the issue in the Senedd, he said: "We are now faced with the prospect of crucial information relating to the pandemic response in Wales never seeing the light of day."

He said Plaid remained "convinced that only a full, Welsh-specific inquiry can provide the answers and the closure that the people of Wales, and particularly those who lost loved ones, sorely deserve".

The Welsh government, which has refused calls for a Wales-only inquiry and has backed the UK-wide exercise, said: "The health minister will respond to the letter in due course. Digital Health and Care Wales are dealing with the matter."