Health Minister David Ashford has provided MHKs with a copy of an internal report into failings in the endoscopy service.

He told the House of Keys this month that, up until a recent request from Speaker Juan Watterson, no MHK had asked for one.

’I am more than happy to have the internally commissioned report circulated to members if they wish to have sight of it,’ he said.

However, he said it contained nothing new beyond what had already been published.

He also said suggestions that the Department of Health and Social Care had previously undertaken to publish the full internal report were inaccurate.

The issue was raised by Julie Edge (Onchan) in the aftermath of accusations by a health charity of a ’catastrophic administrative failure in patient care’ over delays to follow-up colonoscopy appointments.

The island’s Health and Care Association claims some bowel patients were forgotten about and reminders were ignored.

Delays to follow-up appointments were the subject of a review last year ordered by hospital director Mike Quinn which revealed 157 patients had potentially been affected.

Ms Edge asked when the ’report on colonoscopy, commissioned in May 2017, will be published’.

But Mr Ashford started by criticising ’inaccuracies’ in the press.

He said the report related to endoscopy, not just colonoscopy. ’It might sound pedantic but there is a difference,’ he said.

’There has never been, I need to say as well, a recommendation or motion calling for the publication of the full report, which was an internal report commissioned by the department to investigate the issues around endoscopy.

’The recommendation that went before Tynwald, contained within the Social Affairs Policy Review Committee report, was that the DHSC should report to Tynwald by May 2018 its conclusions as to the underlying reasons for the failure to arrange follow-up endoscopies which were discovered in May 2017.’

He said the debate on a Social Affairs Policy Review Committee report on the matter was held in May this year.

’In my speech, I laid out the department’s conclusions as to the underlying reasons for the failures. The conclusions were also contained within the Council of Ministers’ response to the SAPRC report that was published and has been publicly available since May this year.’

Making his offer to circulate the internal report, Mr Ashford said: ’It contains nothing more than what has already been drawn out during the SAPRC inquiry and the conclusions the department has already published.’

Earlier this month, the Isle of Man Examiner reported on how the Health and Care Association, a registered charity that supports patients who have initiated complaints about their care, said that despite assurances from the DHSC there had been an ’enormous failure of care’.

The association became involved following a complaint made by the family of a patient who had been waiting since 2014 for a follow-up colonoscopy. Despite repeated requests from his doctors, he had still not had one when he died in 2017. The HACA has since discovered that other bowel patients may have been waiting years for a follow-up appointment.

The charity said there may be others who were diagnosed by other means and treated but not recorded as needing follow-up by 2017.

It added: ’The scale of this failure may never be properly ascertained because, if an accurate diagnosis of, say, bowel cancer was not confirmed (by colonoscopy), it would not be recorded on a death certificate.

’It seems that these people were not given any priority over routine surveillance cases, and, were, in fact, forgotten about.

’Even worse, there is some evidence that requests and reminders addressed to the appropriate departments by patients and their medical advisors were ignored.’

Following last year’s review that found 157 people were overdue for follow-up colonoscopy appointments, steps were taken to address the issue. It was anticipated to clear the backlog by September of that year.

Giving evidence to the select committee, DHSC chief executive Dr Malcolm Couch, admitted: ’Because we have not been looking after them properly we have a pretty big problem.’

However the SAPRC report went on to praise the DHSC and its staff for its efforts to address the situation, saying: ’We conclude that the changes made in 2017 to the organisation of the endoscopy service appear to have had some success in clearing the backlog and increasing capacity.

’The DHSC must continue to monitor the performance of the endoscopy service to ensure that the improvements to efficiency planned for in 2017 are realised and sustained.’

For more on this issue, see this week's Manx Independent.