Manx Care has identified a £40m funding gap between what it is mandated to do and what cash is available.

The heath care provider has also challenged a report on Manx Radio that it recommended islanders should pay to see their GP.

The organisation has said that in June last year, it predicted an £8.7 million budget shortfall for the 2022/23 financial year.

It added: ‘With a clear instruction from both Treasury and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) that the organisation must live within its means, we were instructed to produce a list of potential mitigations in order to achieve financial balance.’

This has seen the organisation outline what mitigations could be introduced, many of which is says are ‘difficult and unpalatable’ centred around pausing or reducing services, looking at charging to park at Noble’s, charging to see GPs or to use Noble’s A&E or the Minor Injuries Unit in Ramsey on a ‘means tested basis’, halting surgeries on patients with a body mass index over 30 and reviewing eligibility criteria.

A Manx Care spokesman said: ‘The list of mitigations was reviewed by the boards of both Manx Care and the DHSC, with Manx Care having the ultimate responsibility for any decision to implement these measures. At a meeting held in early July, the Manx Care Board agreed that no mitigation involving charging patients for the provision of clinical services or appointments would be considered or recommended.’

The issue of funding the health service is nothing new.

It became something of an annual pilgrimage for health ministers to go to Tynwald to explain why they needed an extra few million pounds to plug a gap, which Manx Care is not alone in saying ‘represents particularly poor value for money for Manx taxpayers’.

As it tries to tame this overspend, Manx Care said it has worked to identify savings, as well as finding areas that need investment.

It said that in the financial year 2022/23, it delivered savings ‘in excess of £10 million, including cash-out savings of £7.4 million, much higher than our initial target of £4.3 million’.

However, it later adds that it has now identified a ‘a funding gap of £40 million in the 2023-24 financial year between what it is mandated to do versus the funding envelope available to us’ and that as a result, it must continue to find areas where savings can be made in order to live within its means.

Manx Care said: ‘It should be noted that the challenges that Manx Care faces also exist within health services globally and across the UK NHS. However, these are exacerbated by the island environment in which we live.

‘We are trying to do our best for the people of the Isle of Man working within the confines of our financial and staffing pressures whilst transforming the way that health and social care is delivered.’

The organisation has also said that as a result of recent media coverage, threats have been made towards the live of specific people and said such incidents will be reported to the police, however it doesn’t detail who, what or when this has happened.