Patients in the island needing physiotherapy have to wait over three months for an appointment.

The September Tynwald written answer from Health and Social Care Minister David Ashford, says that waiting times have spiralled to 13 weeks (91 days) despite the government saying patients should be seen in 10 days.

Juan Watterson SHK (Rushen) asked the Minister: ’What steps he is taking to curb waiting lists in physiotherapy; and what is the target waiting time?’

In his response to Mr Watterson’s question, Mr Ashford said: ’The current waiting time for musculoskeletal physiotherapy is 13 weeks from receipt of referral to appointment.

’The service has adopted a different way of working to enable it to offer services across all three sites (Ramsey, southern and Douglas), rather than keeping it only to a centralised Douglas location.

’The self-referral service has a target time of 10 days. From mid-September 2019 additional locum capacity to reduce the waiting times across this service will be introduced.

’The service has identified key areas where demand placed on physiotherapy service could be reduced and is currently assessing these.

’This includes increasing the self-care advice on the website, the use of first contact musculoskeletal practitioners within the GP practices and enhancing services in rheumatology and chronic pain services, as part of the wider integration and transformation of health and social care services.’

Earlier this year, Mr Ashford told the House of Keys that there was a staff shortage in physiotherapy in the island.

He was also forced to defend the recruitment policies of the DHSC which was affecting other parts of the island’s healthcare services.