Betsi bosses take advice before publishing financial report

The health board running NHS services in north Wales is taking legal advice about how much it will be able to publish of a damning financial report.

A leaked version of the report said finance officials at Betsi Cadwaladr deliberately made incorrect entries in their own accounts.

Betsi’s interim chairman said the health board had not yet published the report so as not to incriminate people.

Dyfed Edwards said there was a “process in place to deal with the specifics”.

Accountancy firm EY’s report, shown to BBC Wales, said Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board wrongly accounted for millions of pounds.

It alleged EY’s work was “hindered” by the alteration of a document and the deletion of a recording of a meeting.

Mr Edwards told BBC Politics Wales it was a “very serious report that raises serious issues”.

“I think we have to reflect on the whole, not just some details,” he added.

“And I think one of the questions for us to pose is, ‘how did those circumstances come about where the board felt it necessary to commission someone from outside the organisation to look at accounts?’

“Culture drives behaviours so what were the circumstances in the organisation at the time that meant people felt they had to do that?

“Also, those are absolutely serious actions and people need to be held accountable for.

“There’s a process in place for that to happen,” he said.

Asked why the report had not been made public, Mr Edwards replied: “Because, as in any similar report, when you have a report that names people, you are legally bound to ensure you are not incriminating people, when there is a process going on.”

He added the board was “seeking legal advice to ensure what we can reveal and what we cannot reveal, given the ongoing process.”

Health Minister Eluned Morgan has said the report “did make extremely sobering reading, which absolutely needs to be acted upon”.

She said “key individuals” named in the report have been suspended.

“Clearly they have legal employment rights. The key thing for me is that we’ve got to follow the right process”.

Meanwhile, Richard Micklewright, a former independent member who forced to resign from a health board along with others, has described the actions of the health minister as “tantamount to bullying”.

The 11 former independent members of the board have questioned the focus on them after a damning audit report called the executive team dysfunctional.

Executives are responsible for the day-to-day operation of health services while independent board members are there to scrutinise the executives’ decisions.

The executives are still in their place but Mr Micklewright said he believed that “something does need to be done about the executive”.

Asked whether the wrong people had been sacked, Mr Edwards told Politics Wales: “I cannot comment on what has happened in the past.”

He added: “But what I would say is we need to reflect on why that happened, why other things have happened during the period of that board.”