A Liberal Vannin MHK is calling for Health Minister David Anderson to go - claiming he had misled the House of Keys.
But there was some good news for under-fire health bosses with the results of a survey showing more than 90 per cent of patients are satisfied with the island’s Community Health Services and their staff.
In the House of Keys last week, Health Minister David Anderson insisted he did not mislead the House when he previously claimed that some consultants who had signed a letter raising concerns about patient safety at Noble’s Hospital had subsequently withdrawn their support.
He said: ‘I have never stated that any of the 10 consultants who signed the letter have retracted their concerns about patient safety. I have stated that some of the original signatories withdrew their support for the letter, by which I meant they had later acknowledged that signing this letter was not the most appropriate way of raising their concerns at that time.’
But one of those who signed the letter, consultant gynaecologist Mike Divers, maintains that none of the signatories withdrew their support. He has provided the Manx Independent with an email showing the response from each consultant clarifying their position.
One said: ‘I still stand by the letter.’ Another said: ‘I make no apology for signing the original letter (let’s face it, it’s been a tremendous stimulus for change).’ A third said: ‘I have never withdrawn my support for the original letter, though I am very uneasy about anonymous letters.’
Another replied: ‘I certainly did not withdraw my support for the letter’. A further consultant said: ‘I am still in total agreement with everything in our original letter and signed it because I believe it truly reflected the situation and still does. I have never withdrawn my support.’
‘I can confirm that I never retracted my support at any time for the original letter written and signed by the 10 of us last winter,’ said another.
Liberal Vannin MHK Mrs Beecroft (Douglas South) described Mr Anderson’s personal statement to the Keys as ‘disingenuous to say the least’ – and she has called for a change of change of Minister, chief executive and management team at the Department of Health.
She claiming there further ‘discrepancies’ with comments made by the Minister about whether the Care Quality Commission - under-fire itself in the UK over revelations of a cover up – had been approached to conduct an external audit of the island’s health service.
Mr Anderson told Tynwald that CGC’s workload was such that it could not take on commitments outside the UK and had no powers to do so. But the CQC’s chief executive told Lib Van they it would be happy to consider undertaking this work but had yet to receive a formal request.
Primary Care distributed 1,100 surveys to patients. Some 98% of respondents thought staff were polite, helpful and courteous, 94% felt they were treated with dignity and respect, 95% felt listened to, cared for and had confidence and trust in the staff. Almost 90% were satisfied with the length of time they waited to be seen and 94% were satisfied with the explanation they received about their treatment.
Tony Jones, general manager of Primary Care, said: ‘We really value patients and the public letting us know how they think we are doing; these results are both pleasing and helpful. The staff have been congratulated on continuing to provide such high quality and well thought of services.’