Manx Care’s £15.6m overspend was ‘disappointing but a significant improvement on previous years’, according to the organisation’s chairman.

Wendy Reid made the comment in Manx Care’s latest annual report which describes 2024-25 as ‘a year both progress and challenge’.

The arm’s length healthcare provider received an extra £43.8m in last year’s Budget, funded in part with a 2p increase on the higher rate of income tax.

Despite this, it ended the financial year £15.6m in the red, representing 4.5% of the operational budget.

The annual report says the deficit was driven by a combination of factors, including increased costs for drugs and contracts, and higher demand for off-island care.

‘While significant savings were achieved through the Cost Improvement Programme, further reductions were constrained by the need to maintain service quality and safety,’ it adds.

Chairman Wendy Reid said: ‘Despite the continued improvements in financial governance and the comprehensive Cost Improvement Programme , Manx Care ended the year with an overspend position of £15.6m.

‘Whilst this was disappointing, it was a significant improvement on previous years, with the year’s deficit amount representing 4.5% of the total operational budget.’

Manx Care has overspent in every year of its existence, a deficit of £9.9m in its first year (2021-22), dipping to £8.8m in the second but then rocketing to £30.4m in 2023-24.

Last year’s overspend was primarily due to higher than budgeted pay inflation, increases in expenditure in off-island care and drug costs.

This was despite delivering an £11.7m cost improvement, and implementing some temporary reductions in planned hospital-based activity during the final quarter to minimise further overspend.

Some £7m of potential savings were deemed unachievable within the financial year due to unacceptable impacts on patient services.

Tertiary care expenditure on high-cost, unplanned emergency and trauma care is largely unpredictable, notes the report.

Expenditure on unavoidable costs totalled £3.8m while drug expenditure increased by approximately 4% compared to the previous year, with significant increases in the costs for treatments in cancer, rheumatology, renal, gastroenterology and cystic fibrosis.

Extra fund claims totalling £8.8m were agreed with the DHSC for compensation claims, CAMHS waiting lists initiatives and transformation workstreams.

The number of patients waiting for a first consultant outpatient appointment increased by nearly 7% to 17,829 during the year while the number of day care patients rose 23% to 2,258 and the inpatient waiting list increased slightly by 3% to 482 - although the number waiting over 52 weeks for an inpatient procedure reduced significantly by 59%.

Just 67% of patients were seen at the emergency department within four hours, falling short of the target of 76%.

The waiting list for an NHS dentist rose 20%, to 6,254.

A staff survey revealed that just over half of colleagues reported experiencing feeling exhausted and burned out. Some 6% of new starters left Manx Care before they had completed their first year.

Some 443 complaints were received by Manx Care during 2024-25, an increase of 122 or 38% on the previous year.