Having started his job as head of the ambulance service in January, this is Will Bellamy’s first TT in the island.

Mr Bellamy said he ‘hit the ground running’ when he arrived as the service had already begun preparations for the racing.

‘Plans were already being developed prior to my arrival so I’ve been catching up and working with my team, being guided through extensive knowledge and history,’ he said.

‘But also Covid’s happened for two years and there’s lots of changes in terms of improving race safety, and lots more off-course events.

‘There’s always been evening entertainment but we haven’t had the size of acts here like Rag n’ Bone Man, Becky Hill and Nile Rodgers.

‘We want to make sure we’re planning for not only riders but also making sure that the population of the Isle of Man is planned for too. If you need healthcare or if you need an ambulance, you get one or make your own way.’

He said the difference in laws and smaller size of staff in all organisations in the island didn’t stop people from making the TT happen.

Mr Bellamy, formerly of the South East Coast Ambulance Service and based in Kent, added: ‘I think the Isle of Man is unique and the racing is unique. I’ve learnt people are really enthusiastic, they want to make it happen, they’re much more enablers than sitting there and going “we can’t do this”.

‘People are looking at how they can do it and make things safer which is really encouraging so I’m learning a lot from my team. I’m really proud of my team and we’re prepared, we’ve got more staff and vehicles on the road. Staff are going above and beyond like doing extra things so they can facilitate other staff members to watch the races.

‘It’s an ethos of teamwork and I’ve never felt that before, it’s really encouraging and warming to see from the perspective of someone who’s come across.’

The ambulance service usually runs four vehicles during the day and three overnight, but during TT there are six during the day, two on late shifts (2pm to 2am) and an on-call arrangement overnight.

‘They will be physically on duty, on the ground working because with evening entertainment and late finishing it was never going to work otherwise,’ he said. ‘There are also additional roles such as working in the control room and in the race tower to aid and enable communications, making sure everyone is safe whilst the racing is on.

‘I asked what our TT activity looks like compared to normal, given we’re getting busier every year. One of the tasks that I did with the team is look at the activity log and then layer it over the events, so when there’s racing or evening entertainment, we can lay vehicles on to meet that demand.’

With staff shortages being reported across all sectors, particularly healthcare, there is concern about the number of paramedics in the Isle of Man.

Mr Bellamy explained more staff have been brought into the organisation from the UK for the fortnight.

He said: ‘There’s six from Wales and one from Guernsey. Historically, we’ve always had uplifts of staff across healthcare.

‘TT was previously our busiest period but fast-forward two years and that activity is now our daily average.

‘If you layer TT on top of that, I have to think about keeping the population safe – not just riders but also people who are living in Ramsey, Port Erin or Peel who will phone for us if there’s an emergency.

‘If TT’s on and they’re unwell or have shortness of breath they should be able to call us.’

Currently, there is a ‘small vacancy factor’ for paramedics.

The ambulance director said: ‘We’ve also got to recognise that the paramedic profession is changing and there’s lots of initiatives across where the paramedics can not only work just historically on an ambulance, they can work in primary care, acute secondary settings and it’s a great profession, we just have to work out how the ambulance service can work as a facilitator for that.

‘Paramedics are registered clinicians now so we’re trying to reduce our vacancy rate now. We’ve just offered five paramedic positions out after a very successful recruitment campaign but also recognised that we have to keep a pipeline of staff and growing our own.

‘It takes three years from registering to starting and we have to recognise we’ve got retirement and people moving into different areas.

‘It’s great for paramedics to move on into different areas and we want to facilitate that but it’s also about cultivating our paramedics from the island.’

However, Mr Bellamy believes that widening treatment options according to paramedics’ skills is the way forward.

He said: ‘One of the things I’m looking at as head of the service is how do we not just meet the benchmark but exceed it.

‘What can we do for the most appropriate treatment plan for the patients? Can we not just take people to Noble’s? Can we utilise other pathways?

‘Our paramedics are registered professionals and we could train them to have a wider range of treatment options, skills and diagnostic assessments, so we can treat people at home rather than just bringing them to hospital.

‘We want to reserve the hospital for people who really need it and have had life threatening accidents and emergencies.

‘I’m confident our planning, uplift in staff and the shift times and changes we’ve made will have made it as safe as possible.’

The response times have not suffered as a result of any shortages. Typical response times are split into categories – category one has a response time of seven minutes, two is 18, three is 120, four is 180 minutes.

Mr Bellamy added: ‘I don’t want patients waiting any longer than they need to, however when we have patients who have a lower level injury compared to someone who has life-threatening chest pains we have to prioritise them first and we have to get to them quicker and it’s the right thing to do.’

In terms of other provision for TT, Manx Care’s chief executive Teresa Cope said there have been cancellations of routine elective procedures, as is done every year for the event, so emergency and time critical surgery could take place if it needed to.

She said: ‘For Covid we’re back at escalation level one, which is business as usual, so we have got our dedicated trauma ward back in place, which was one of the Covid wards. That’s what we planned and in terms of bed capacity our plan is to run a bed occupancy of around 85%. We’ve got the bed capacity across the organisation in the right place as we go into TT. We’ve got the contingency arrangements about being able to purchase additional capacity in the community in order to keep the beds available.

‘Clearly we’ve planned for a number of scenarios but if we are at capacity that will need to a decision Manx Care makes in conjunction with race organisers as to whether racing can happen or not or whether we delay racing slightly.’

Manx Care continues to run a helicopter trial that sees it bring the hospital to the roadside.

‘From the perspective of Manx Care, if you need emergency care on the phone, on the road or in the air, we’re ready for it,’ Mr Bellamy added.