The public are being urged to have their say in helping shape the way health and social care are delivered on the island.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is seeking views on plans to combine three pieces of legislation to form a modern Health and Care Services Bill.

The DHSC feels the three current pieces of legislation are not fit for purpose and ‘don’t work as well together’.

The plan is to replace it with one all-encompassing piece act.

The Health and Care Services Bill consultation will gather comments on policy principles covering service planning, record sharing, service improvement and empowering patients.

Among the proposals will be to allow medical professionals broader access to patient records to allow sharing among different services so everyone is on the same page in delivering patient care.

DHSC Minister Lawrie Hooper said: ‘‘All of us are touched by health and care needs at some point in our lives and our current legislation, as highlighted by Sir Jonathan Michael in 2019, needs reform.

‘Critically we want it to remain flexible, effective and facilitate different ways of working together to provide high-quality care now and in the future.

‘We’re hoping to do this by replacing three pieces of legislation, that don’t work as well together as we would like, with one fully functional, modernised Bill. It’s going to be a fairly lengthy process to develop this legislation, so we’ve split it into five phases.’

The survey asks about priorities when receiving care, such as location, if the perspectives of the carer should be considered when delivering care and if personal budgets should be issued so people can better tailor their own care needs.

It's being developed in response to a recommendation set out in the Sir Johnathan Michael report of Health and Care Services on the Isle of Man which also suggested the creation of Manx Care.

The move would update and combine the National Health Service Act 2001, the Social Services Act 2011 and the National Health and Care Service Act 2016, to work alongside the Manx Care Act 2021.

The five phases of the new bill will be policy principles, social care, healthcare, cross-cutting issues (like the protection of Manx Care from fraud) and more ‘miscellaneous issues’ like research and development, private provision and complaints.

Work on social care and healthcare has already begun, and the remaining phases are planned to take place over the next 12 months. 

You can have your say through the online consultation hub, alternatively paper copies are available at the welcome centre. You can also email copies and via [email protected]. The consultation will close at midnight on October 7, 2024.