NHS Wales emails from Covid era accidentally deleted

Accidental deletions have occurred involving Welsh NHS emails that were important evidence for the Covid inquiry.

Accounts that are not being used by NHS Wales employees who either no longer work there or have changed jobs have been deleted.

Plaid Cymru became worried when they heard the news. They were concerned that important information about how Wales is responding to the pandemic might never be made public.

An IT organization in the NHS stated that they are working to get back the data.

We don’t know how many email addresses were affected by the issue. The problem happened because of a wrong setting that decides when emails get erased.

The problem came up in a meeting of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, as part of their involvement in the Covid inquiry.

The health board said that all health boards were affected by the problem.

The document said that the IT organization called Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) found a problem with “inactive account mailboxes”.

The text says that because rules for keeping things were not followed correctly, some email accounts for people who don’t work for NHS Wales anymore or who changed jobs have been deleted. This means that their information can’t be found and used as evidence.

The paper said the problem was completely resolved in March 2023 and will not happen again. However, it stated that it does impact certain evidence that we (and all health boards) would have been able to give to the investigation.

A group called DHCW, created in 2021 to make technology better in the Welsh NHS, said they are trying to fix a problem of deleted emails. They are looking in other mailboxes to find the emails that were sent or received by the person whose emails got deleted. This will help hospitals and trusts with any investigations or questions.

DHCW informed the Covid inquiry that they had found a problem with inactive user accounts. They have now made a solution to this problem and will follow a standard policy of keeping emails for seven years.


In a letter to the Labour health minister Eluned Morgan, Mabon ap Gwynfor from Plaid Cymru stated that it is important to learn from this unfortunate mistake as soon as possible.

He is asking for an official statement about the issue at the Senedd. He said that important information about the pandemic response in Wales might not be made public.

He said Plaid believed that only a complete, Wales-focused investigation can give the Welsh people, especially those who lost family members, the answers and resolution they truly deserve.

The Welsh government was asked to comment on their decision to support the UK-wide inquiry instead of conducting a separate inquiry just for Wales.