The Welsh Health System

NHS Wales Overview

7 Local Health Boards: Plan, commission and deliver most health services in dedicated regions. (Map, right, extracted from NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership).
3 Trusts: Deliver nationwide services related to Cancer, Emergency Care and Public Health
- Velindre University NHS Trust (cancer care and blood services).
- Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust (emergency and non-emergency transport).
- Public Health Wales NHS Trust (Wales's National Public Health Agency).
Other NHS Wales organisations include:
- NHS Performance and Improvement: a national support function to drive improvements in the quality and safety of care.
- NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership: provides a range of customer focused support functions and services to NHS Wales.
- Digital Health and Care Wales: a special health authority, building and designing digital services for health and care in Wales.
- NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee: a Committee of the seven Health Boards acting to commission specialist health services, emergency medical services, non-emergency patient transport services, emergency medical retrieval and transfer services, NHS 111 services, sexual assault referral centres, and other services as directed by the Welsh Ministers.
- Health and Care Research Wales: a Welsh Government-funded organisation established to promote, fund, and support health and social care research in Wales. The organisation is overseen by the Support & Delivery Centre (SD&C), hosted within NHS Wales.

NHS Wales Performance and Improvement

As of 1 June 2025, the NHS Wales Executive was officially renamed NHS Wales Performance and Improvement. As part of the Welsh Government this body is responsible for driving performance, implementing "A Healthier Wales", and managing NHS planning.
NHS Wales Performance and Improvement aim is to provide leadership and strategic direction – enabling, supporting and directing NHS Wales to transform clinical services in line with national priorities and standards. In particular, the organisation are focused on:
- Strengthening national leadership and support for quality improvement.
- Providing more central direction to ensure a consistent and equitable approach to national and regional planning based on outcomes.
- Enabling stronger performance management arrangements, including capacity to challenge and support organisations that are not operating as expected.