A guide to the roles and responsibilities of NHS Board Members is contained in the Welsh NHS Confederation Pocket Guide to Governance in NHS Wales (PDF, 1.11MB).
A Good Governance Guide for NHS Wales Boards is available from Academi Wales.
Board Champions are designed to engender board level commitment and focus around key areas of service development or delivery. For the Boards' Independent members (NOMs/NEDs), this provides an opportunity to gain a deeper level of insight and knowledge around key areas with the aim of better equipping them and the whole Board to fulfil its role.
Structure and boundaries for all Board Champion roles are to be introduce over 2021 (for those posts where currently there is none), to provide greater clarity regarding the expectations of the role. This follows the review carried out to assess whether all the roles introduced in the last 15+ years were still relevant and had value. Some of the roles were found to have achieved what they set out to do, whilst others had changed with the introduction of legislation over that period. The Welsh Health Circular (WHC) lists the roles to be maintained.
Whilst role descriptions are under development, care needs to be taken to ensure that 'champions' do not cross the line into actions, activities and accountabilities that are properly that of the Executive, or that other Board members abdicated their own responsibility to understand these areas simply because one of their colleagues may be considered as an 'expert' in this area. All statutory champion roles are continuing and detailed in the WHC.