Manx Care’s Interim Executive Director of Operations has delivered a candid assessment of the island’s health and care system as he prepares to leave his role after two years.
Shaun Stacey, who has worked in healthcare for 43 years, said the Isle of Man had “proved [him] wrong” in ways he did not expect, highlighting strained services, cultural resistance, and political interference as key barriers to improvement.
He praised frontline staff for delivering “exceptional care in an incredibly strained system” but warned that the island’s structural advantages, a single population, single system and single funding pot, were not being realised. “It should be simple. Spoiler alert: it isn’t,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
Stacey criticised political behaviour that “grabs the steering wheel” and then “blames the driver when the car ends up in a ditch”, adding that promises without funding were “theatre, not strategy”.
Concerns Raised
He also raised concerns about reluctance among some senior clinicians to adopt modern practice, saying continuous professional development “only works if some of the development is actually continuous”.
Culture, hierarchy and attitudes toward people perceived as “different” were described as “genuinely uncomfortable”, with Stacey warning that islanders still struggle to access routine and emergency care “despite significant public investment”.
With a general election approaching, he urged voters to question candidates on priorities, trade‑offs and funding. “You cannot promise everything, fund something less and then act surprised when services struggle,” he said.
Stacey said he hoped the island’s planned turnaround programme succeeds, adding that he will be “watching with interest… probably from somewhere considerably warmer”.
