Powys Teaching Health Board Annual Plan 2026/27
We are pleased to present our ambitious and realistic Annual Plan for 2026/27, that takes very seriously the challenges we face, whilst remaining steadfast in our intentions to deliver real and lasting improvements in healthcare for our population.
As always, we are inspired by and proud of the care provided by our diligent, conscientious and dedicated staff. Our focus on quality, performance and good governance remains central to everything we do, and the Plan outlines the balanced position we have taken across these domains as well as that of financial recovery. We have significant challenges which are contributing to a deficit financial position and, as laid out in this Plan, we understand the drivers behind them and have clear actions to address them with urgency.
These actions are based in part on the recommendations of the escalation external report by Grant Thornton and Partners. The report confirmed that we have firm grip and control, which enabled us to deliver an ambitious plan with historic levels of savings in 2025/26; and we will maintain this focus in 2026/27.
Whilst the total opportunities identified by the report will not be sufficient in themselves to eradicate the underlying deficit, we will maximise them in the short to medium term. However, short term actions alone will not be sufficient to achieve financial balance, nor to deliver the best use of resources in the face of growing need, demand and costs. This plan therefore sets out our approach across three dimensions of ‘Risk, Recovery and Sustainability’ for the short, medium and longer term.
In the last two years we have made changes to healthcare in Powys to improve outcomes for patients and also made difficult choices in our commissioning of services. We have achieved successes in productivity and efficiency, for example, in recruitment and reductions in agency spend. In the short term we will continue to focus on efficiency through modernising our service models, improving our commissioning and contracting arrangements (in line with the Grant Thornton report) and bringing care closer to home across a range of community services and planned care specialties.
In the medium term we will continue to build on our learning from all of these changes to transform our provider and commissioned services through our ‘Better Together’ transformation programme, with particular focus on our community, mental health and planned care services.
Along with a renewed focus on population health, this work forms part of our longer term Routemap to financial balance and sustainability. This aligns with national goals as well as our local, shared Health and Care Strategy, ‘A Healthy Caring Powys’ which will remain our guiding strategy until 2029.
Dr Carl Cooper, Chair
Hayley Thomas, Chief Executive
The full version is available in English and Welsh and other formats can be provided on request.
For further information please contact the PTHB Planning Team via email at: planning.powys@wales.nhs.uk
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