The former health minister says she believes her old department is not fit for purpose - and she had been ’set up to fail’.

Kate Beecroft quit as health minister in January, claiming the Chief Minister told her to resign or be sacked.

In Tynwald she delivered a stinging attack at Howard Quayle for the lack of support she said she had received and for the lack of clear direction in the Department of Health and Social Care.

During a debate on the public accounts committee investigation into the DHSC’s £9.5m overspend, Mrs Beecroft said: ’I obviously felt I was banging my head against a brick wall. I did meet with the Chief Minister to ask for his advice and look for his support. Unfortunately the only advice I got was to make sure everything is documented and he never gave me his support.

’In a nutshell, I genuinely feel I was set up to fail.’

Mrs Beecroft said for any organisation to work effectively and efficiently, it needs a clear picture of the outcome you are striving for and a plan for achieving it.

But she said: ’When I was appointed minister it quickly became apparent this was not the case in the department. I could go on at length about why I believe the department is not fit for purpose.’

Giving a couple of examples, she said the five-year strategy that the previous minister, and now Chief Minister, had brought to Tynwald was supposed to lay out the aims of the department and two main themes were integrated care and community hubs.

’When I queried the progress made in each of these areas I discovered there was no lead person responsible for driving each of the areas,’ she said.

’And what I found even more incredible was that there was not even a definition of each of these things. So you didn’t know what you were doing and you didn’t know who was supposed to be doing it.’

She said on May 31 last year there was a meeting regarding financial options and where efficiency savings should be made.

Mrs Beecroft said: ’I was given a document and to say I was frankly appalled by the standard of the information I was given, or should I say lack of information, would be an understatement.

’Most of the items were just one-liners and often contained no information about the possible effects of these actions and many didn’t even specify what the anticipated savings would be and what the downside or benefits could be.

’It looked like something a schoolchild could haver thrown together.

She asked Health Minister David Ashford to circulate this document to members - and if he wouldn’t she would apply for a copy under FoI.

She offered to give evidence to back up her claims to the public accounts committee.

But she added: ’Until the culture of the department changes, the same behaviours and results are going to continue. It’s very important that it changes in there, very important for all of us.’

She said she wished her successor Mr Ashford success.

Tynwald voted to approve most of the PAC’s recommendations, as amended so that they would be taken into account by the independent review into the Manx NHS.

But one recommendation - that services should not be expanded or new services introduced until the DHSC is back in financial balance - was not supported.