Costs of providing patient transport to the airport have been outlined in Tynwald.

ConnectPorts was launched as a 12-month trial in October 2018 with Bus Vannin minibuses collecting passengers from their homes and taking them to Ronaldsway, and connecting with return flights at the end of the day.

Ramsey MHK Lawrie Hooper asked what the average cost was to patient transfers of a patient journey from their home to the airport in each of the last two financial years, and for the current financial year.

He also asked what the average cost is of transporting a patient from their home to the airport using the new ConnectPorts service.

In a written reply, Health Minister David Ashford said the cost of patient transfer was £13.46 per journey in 2017-18 and £12.91 in 2018-19.

He said a budget transfer of £125,000 a year was agreed from his department in 2019-20 for Bus Vannin to provide the service.

As this new service was implement part way through the financial year, the DHSC had incurred costs of £21,680 and as such the transfer amount for 2019-20 to the Department of Infrastructure was £103,320.

In his written reply, Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer said the DoI operates the patient transfer service as part of a group of services.

Key costs, such as fuel usage, cannot be split from the overall bus fuel cost, he said, and it was therefore not possible to accurately allocate all costs to a particular service.

But he said the DoI estimates the typical costs per passenger are between £5.78 and £6.44 depending on such factors as distance travelled.

To better illustrate the savings made, he said, a single minibus has replaced up to eight separate taxi bookings to take patients from the north of the island to the same flight.