A HEALTH board that failed to report 84 coronavirus related deaths in the region for a month has been labelled as 'predictable.'

Dr James Davies, MP for Vale of Clwyd, said 'for many, this revelation was all too predictable' after Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) failed to disclose the Covid-19 statistics, in line with other health boards, between March 20 and April 22.

A review, ‘mechanism for reporting of Covid-19 deaths in Wales’, has since been published.

No definite reason for the gap in reporting was provided but instead a suggestion that the error was triggered by an 'administrative oversight'.

The Welsh Government report stated: "BCUHB has consistently reported suspected Covid-19 deaths in various ways since the pandemic began through the mechanism.

"Public Health Wales (PHW) and BCUHB have worked closely throughout the pandemic at every stage.

“However, the reporting of suspected Covid-19 deaths to PHW did not continue and this resulted in a number of suspected COVID-19 deaths not being reported to PHW despite continued reporting of these deaths to other bodies.

“It remains unclear what may have triggered this gap in reporting specifically to PHW other than an administrative oversight, occurring at a time of unprecedented change at the early stage of a pandemic, with several different reporting processes in place.

“BCUHB became aware of the issue on April 18 when the discrepancy became clear upon the publication of local data for the first time on the PHW dashboard.

“Once this was discovered, extensive discussion and data validation between BCUHB and PHW occurred, leading to a robust data sharing process implemented from April 24.

“BCUHB have also confirmed they will be using the e-form process from April 28.”

The report identified two ‘themes’ that could had led to the ‘gap’ in reporting including: Inconsistent approaches across health boards and multiple reporting streams and unclear reconciliation processes.

“Currently the E-form has not being signed off or implemented across all health boards. Although we have received assurances from all other health boards that, despite the lack of using the E-form, they are providing data to the agreed definition, the lack of a consistent approach leads to a risk of divergence and inefficiency,” the report stated.

BCUHB were placed in special measures in June 2015.

PHW reported 84 deaths in North Wales last Thursday, April 23.

Initially, it looked like the area had seen the biggest jump in confirmed deaths up to 110, but it was revealed the figures were for the whole month.

Dr Davies said: "For many, this revelation was all too predictable. The report suggests that BCUHB did have accurate records of Covid-19 related deaths but neglected to communicate these properly to Public Health Wales.

"It is clear to me however that equal blame must lie with Public Health Wales, which seems to have been slow to implement a standard reporting system and did not pick up an implausible number of reported deaths for North Wales for over a month.

"This situation has fortunately not led to any harm, but the governance failings it has highlighted both locally, and at the Cardiff-level, reflect the continued very troubling state of the health board and NHS Wales in general.”

Prior to the review being published, Simon Dean, interim chief executive of BCUHB, said: "Details of the number of deaths in North Wales were reported in public for the first time on Friday (April 24). Due to issues identified in our reporting system, Friday’s update included an accumulation of cases where a patient has died while also testing positive for Covid-19.

"All data on cases of Covid-19 and deaths have been recorded correctly, and the issue identified relates to how this data is shared.

"This issue has now been resolved."