Health bosses are turning to two private companies in the UK to cut waiting lists.

Manx Care will use the services of Medefer and 18 Week Support to conduct around 12,500 virtual outpatient consultations and inpatient procedures between September 2021 and March 2022.

The Treasury has approved £1.86m to pay for it.

Waiting lists is a long-standing issue on the island. Covid-19 has made the situation worse.

Medefer provides a virtual outpatient service to NHS trusts across the UK, employing medical consultants with experience across a broad range of clinical specialisms.

They will work with consultants at Noble’s Hospital to identify patients who have been waiting the longest for a specialist appointment, and who are eligible for their medical consultation to be conducted virtually.

These patients will then be referred to Medefer.

The Medefer consultant will review the patient’s medical history and any relevant test results before conducting a detailed phone consultation with them.

If any further tests are required, patients will have these in the Isle of Man.

These will then be reviewed in a virtual follow-up appointment.

The patient will then either be discharged under the care of their GP with a detailed treatment plan, or will be discharged back into the outpatient system for further follow-up appointments.

Medefer will focus on the provision of around 10,000 appointments across the specialities of:

*Orthopaedics

*ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat)

*Gastroenterology

*Cardiology

*Respiratory medicine

*Pain management

*Neurology

The company 18 Week Support uses a hospital’s surplus theatre capacity to deliver surgical procedures over the weekend nd provides this service across a number of UK NHS trusts.

A clinical team from the company - including consultants, surgeons, nurses and theatre practitioners - will travel to the island to conduct around 2,500 endoscopy and cataract procedures at Noble’s.

Manx Care says this will not affect its ’core’ workforce, which it says is already working to capacity.

Both Medefer and 18-Week Support are included in the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspection regime and are used across the UK NHS to reduce their own waiting list backlogs caused by the pandemic.

Manx Care’s chief executive, Teresa Cope, said: ’Addressing the long-standing waiting list challenge across our health and care service is a priority for Manx Care.

’It’s unacceptable that people are having to wait as long as they are for consultations and treatment.

’Utilising the services of Medefer and 18-Week Support will allow us to focus on reducing our waiting lists across nine clinical specialisms whilst implementing the changes we need to deliver that will allow us to provide a long-term, sustainable service here on-island.

’The Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the pressure on waiting lists over the last 17 months, and the delivery of health and social care services more broadly.

’Like the UK NHS, which is investing over £5 billion into the recovery of health and care services following the pandemic, Manx Care has secured funding to address a significant proportion of our waiting list backlog which will be targeted at those who have been waiting the longest time for their outpatient appointment or procedure.’