A body designed to deal with criticism and praise for the health service is being made permanent.

MCALS – the Manx Care Advice and Liaison Service – was originally set up on a temporary basis.

It was established in August 2021 as somewhere that individuals or their representatives could contact if they wanted to provide feedback on health and care services provided by Manx Care, ask questions about available treatments or seek guidance and support from health and social care staff.

It was also designed to be a starting point for anyone who wasn’t sure where to look for information or access what they needed.

According to Manx Care, MCALS has proven to be an integral part of Manx Care, giving members of the public a central point to contact the organisation via telephone and email.

For this reason, the MCALS team is now established as a permanent service, monitoring patient and service-user feedback, highlight emerging trends and address these in order to drive positive change across Manx Care.

The team is led by Karen Maddox, who has a background in customer service and the healthcare sector, with support from two MCALS officers, Sandra Keene and Rachel Douglas.

Teresa Cope, the chief executive of Manx Care, said: ‘We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the team who established MCALS last year during its pilot phase, and for their brilliant work since then.

‘It is exciting to now have a substantive team in place under the leadership of Karen Maddox, and I would like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public to contact MCALS if they need guidance and support from Manx Care but aren’t sure where to look for information.

‘The feedback provided to the team is used to positively effect change, address any issues and shape the future direction of services within Manx Care, which is very valuable to us.’

MCALS can also record positive experiences and any concerns or queries people may have.

It can be contacted on 642642 or by email on [email protected] between the hours of 10am and 3pm on weekdays, with an answerphone service outside of those hours.