An ’executive leadership team’ now oversees governance at the Department of Health and Social Care.

Health Minister David Ashford has outlined the current structure, in answer to a written House of Keys question from Kate Beecroft (LibVannin, Douglas South).

The quality of governance in the DHSC was one of the issues that came under the spotlight in a series of inquiries by the West Midlands Quality Review Service. In 2014 it found there was a lack of an overall framework.

A governance board was created in 2014 and disbanded in 2016 - when Chief Minister Howard Quayle was still the health minister. It met just eight times.

Mrs Beecroft, who was sacked as health minister at the turn of the year, has been calling for governance to be looked into urgently.

In her latest question, she asked whether governance standards highlighted by the WMQRS were considered a risk.

Mr Ashford said the risks were ’recognised by the DHSC Department of Health and Social Care and consequently remedial action has been taken such that the three operational management units now report under one senior executive’, deputy chief executive Michaela Morris.

He added that the membership of the executive leadership team, which also includes the medical director and director of public health, had been expanded to include ’key directorate leads’ from the hospitals, community and children and family directorates.

’The purpose of the executive leadership team is to provide governance oversight of each of the services delivered by the DHSC and to hold to account each member of the leadership team for the delivery of their designated portfolios of responsibility,’ said Mr Ashford

’These portfolio responsibilities include safety and quality, financial management and activity performance.’

Since the WMQRS reviews, said Mr Ashford, ’much work’ had been done to evaluate the work of DHSC sub-committees to make the department more efficient.

’More recently a comprehensive review of the department’s risk register has been carried out,’ he added.

’Risks are reviewed at a local level as a minimum on a monthly basis and issues of concern are escalated to the ELT, which meets fortnightly, and to the monthly department meeting at which the risk log is reviewed as a standing agenda item.’

In reply to a separate question by Mrs Beecroft about whether Noble’s Hospital had ever been put in ’special measures or similar’, Mr Ashford said that the special measures provision was an aspect of the regulatory regime in the UK, but that system was not in place in the island.