Health bosses want to recruit lay people to help to develop policies.

The Department of Health and Social Care is looking for patient, public and service user representatives to help to provide an independent voice to advise members and officers.

The representatives will be go-betweens between the public and the DHSC, helping to relay health policies to the public.

The department says that ideally individuals should have experience of the island’s health and care sector, but don’t need to have had any experience of a public role or working alongside the DHSC before.

On April 1, Manx Care will launch.

It is a stand-alone organisation sitting at arm’s-length from the DHSC with responsibility for the provision of integrated health and care services across the island.

The DHSC will retain its responsibility for setting policy, strategy, regulation and financial management, with the combined structure being a key recommendation of Sir Jonathan Michael’s report recommending a major shake-up of healthcare provision for the island.

Within this DHSC will ensure a more transparent governance structure is in place, open to both internal and external scrutiny, resulting in more informed policy development.

The representative roles are both voluntary, with the successful candidates being asked to contribute around two days of their time every month.

They will be given training, work with those groups who may be under-represented in the community and increase public participation in, for example, surveys, consultations and health-related public events.

Kathryn Magson, interim chief executive of the DHSC, said: "The Isle of Man has a very diverse range of community groups within its population, all with very different health and social care needs as well as differing views about what high-quality care looks like for them.

"It’s therefore vital that we engage as closely as we can, and make sure that patients and service users have a voice within our strategic decision-making.

"We want our representatives to act as a 'critical friend’ to the DHSC by asking challenging questions of us so that we can ultimately deliver a world-class health and care system for Manx residents."