The Lieutenant Governor Sir John Lorimer and Lady Phillippa Lorimer visited the ambulance service to hear about how it has operated during the pandemic.

According to Manx Care, they were interested to hear about the challenges surrounding the operations of a busy ambulance service in the context of an island environment.

Manx Care’s ambulance service is ’effectively managed’ with all calls triaged using a validated call assessment and prioritisation framework via the Emergency Services Joint Control Room.

The ambulance service team has a number of highly skilled paramedics, technicians and emergency care assistants who are overseen and supported by a team of senior paramedic officers, a nurse consultant and a consultant in emergency medicine.

Part of the role of the paramedic is to administer urgent treatement on scene and convey the patient to hospital where required for further treatement to be given by the emergency department team.

The service is also backed up by St John Ambulance personnel in the island when needed.

St John Ambulance personnel are similarly qualified to an emergency care assistant standard, and are dispatched to see patients with a clinical need that’s aligned with their skillset.

Sir John and Lady Lorimer also heard about response times which change depending on the category of the emergency, with category one ambulance calls being given a priority status by the Control Room call handler (which is defined as an immediate response to a life threatening condition).