A former minister warned politicians did not stand a ’cat in hell’s chance’ of solving the health department’s funding problems if they did not bring in outside help.

Chris Robertshaw (Douglas East), who was social care minister when it was a separate government department from 2011-14, praised Mr Cannan for seeking an independent review.

’To be at last facing up to the challenge is, for me, something of a catharsis - a really genuine relief,’ Mr Robertshaw said.

He said that when department chiefs acknowledged they needed external help to put the department back on course, it was time to listen.

Skills

Mr Robertshaw told Tynwald on Tuesday: ’If the senior executives do not think that they have the skills to conduct these crucially important exercises, do we honestly believe that - as non-professional, elected representatives - we have a cat in hell’s chance of putting things right as ministers or departmental members, without seeking the right external advice?

’If the answer is that we can solve this ourselves in isolation, then I would respectfully suggest those with such an attitude might be guilty of hubris.’

DHSC chief executive Malcolm Couch has previously said that, if starting afresh on the budget structure, the department would look at the island’s population and determine what services were needed and then work out the cost and quality of those services.

Instead, Mr Couch, said that the budget structure ’has been built up over the years with bits of flywheels and pullies and string and sticking tape’.

The chief executive warned that the department did not have the ’skills’ to carry out some of the exercises required for a fundamental review.