Manx Care CEO Teresa Cope says the government has agreed to fund doctors’ pay rises, rather than it coming from existing budgets.
Ms Cope was speaking on the day that cuts to some services were confirmed, as well as additional £800,000 of funding for Manx Care to run some services to the end of March.
Since the Health Minister and the British Medical Association announced a deal had been agreed, it has been unclear both how much this would cost and who was going to pay for it.
When asked in Tynwald, DHSC Minister Claire Christian only said that “the cost of any award, awards will have to be met by the budget set by the Treasury”.
However, Ms Cope told Manx.News that the money for doctors’ pay has now come from additional funding from government and that “that “those two things are completely not connected”
She said: “The additional funding which was provided to Manx Care in order to negotiate what was a settled position with the doctors, that has come from the Department of Health and Social Care so that is not from within the Manx care budget.
“Manx Care was always clear what it could afford to offer doctors and it couldn’t breach that and so we have managed to settle but obviously, with additional support from the DHSC.”
Ms Cope said the final details haven’t been confirmed, but the pay rises are likely to cost “around £2.2m”, which will also have to be found going forward.
She added: “I genuinely wouldn’t want those two things to be connected.
“Our doctors deserved and negotiated a better pay settlement and cuts to services, reductions in services. are not being enacted in order to fund that and I think I want to make that really clear.”
4 Comments