Communications over healthcare cuts 'a challenge'
BBCA delay in communicating recent cuts to healthcare has led to an "unnecessary challenge" for the public and clinical staff, a health improvement director has said.
In January, Manx Care confirmed a reduction to some upcoming on-island elective surgeries, as well as cancellations to non-urgent procedures in Liverpool and Manchester until 31 March.
The raft of measures were a bid to keep its budget deficit to no more than £15m this financial year, a request that had been made by the government.
Giving evidence to a public accounts committee, Manx Care's improvement director Sean Stacey said it was "important" that it maintained control of decisions on any cuts and how they were communicated.
The committee heard that in early January Manx Care's Board had approved a number of cuts proposed by two newly appointed improvement directors.
However, in mid-January, once the Department of Health and Social Care had seen the details of the cuts, Manx Care was asked to postpone its plans to communicate the measures while additional funding was sought.
That led to cuts to some on-island elective procedures being reversed after an additional £800,000 in spending was approved by Treasury.
But Mr Stacey told the committee: "To maintain care that is free to the point of delivery, it has to be done in an affordable way and that is not what has been happening.
"To get that balance back it is really important those controls are left to the provider," he added.
Chief Executive Officer of Manx Care Teresa Cope said the measures were "not decisions the Manx Care board would want to take at all".
However, when the decisions had to be taken "we would want to be able to manage those communications in a way which is as respectful and considered as possible", she added.
"Even the most modest and minor changes that make clinical and operational sense are not permitted" by the department, Ms Cope said.
But Health and Social Care Minister Claire Christian said while there was a time politicians and the department had been seeking to divert some of the mitigations, it had been with a "good intention for the Manx public".
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