The new chief executive at the Department of Health and Social Care will commute to the island on a weekly basis, it has been revealed.

Health Minister David Ashford insisted Kathryn Magson will be working full-time as the interim chief executive of the DHSC.

She has been seconded from her role as chief executive at NHS Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group, on a two-year contract from January 1.

In Tynwald, Julie Edge (Onchan) asked Mr Ashford when Ms Magson would be relocating to the island. He said: ’The new interim chief executive will not be relocating her family to the island but will commute weekly.’

He said she would work full-time for the DHSC, spending a minimum of three days a week in the island.

’We are living in 2019, not 1919,’ he said. ’People do work and can work remotely.

’If you have to have a chief executive physically here - physically present, sat in an office five days a week - then there is something fundamentally wrong if they have to micromanage to that extent the department and there is something wrong with the rest of our senior management team.’

Ms Magson replaces Angela Murray in the role.