Plans are in place for what will happen at Noble’s Hospital in the event of a resurgence of Covid-19.

Health and Social Care Minister David Ashford said his department is operating under the assumption of ’when and not if there is to be a resurgence’ of the virus.

The Minister was asked by Kate Lord-Brennan MLC for an update on DHSC’s plans for dealing with a resurgence and the communications related to it.

Mr Ashford said that the DHSC is planning for ’second and subsequent resurgences’ and that this has been factored into the department’s winter planning across its services. He said the DHSC is able to use the lessons learned from the first wave of Covid-19 to inform future planning.

He added: ’From a hospital point of view, should there be a second resurgence of Covid-19, the hospital will resume its ’Covid configuration’ which seeks to zone the hospital so that patients who have suspected or confirmed Covid-19 are managed in separate zones of the hospital.

’Dedicated groups of clinical staff look after patients within the Covid zone to minimise transmission of Covid from "hot" to "cold" zones of the hospital.

’Whereas in the first phase of Covid, we had three wards dedicated to the management of suspected Covid-19 and one ward dedicated to the management of confirmed Covid-19 patients , which at the time was because we relied on the UK for testing.

’We now have rapid Covid-19 diagnostic capability on island and therefore the ward capacity required can reduce to one ward for suspected and one ward for confirmed.’ The reduction in inpatient capacity will mean that two wards can remain dedicated to elective operating thereby reducing the impact of Covid-19 on the elective programme.

The department also plans to increase the inpatient capacity within Noble’s and directly commission beds within the care home sector.

This will enable rapid discharge of patients from the hospital who require either residential or nursing care after discharge and also increase community services resources to support individuals within their own homes to either prevent admission or to expedite discharge to home.

Services in the community would also be impacted in the event of a second outbreak and two services developed and launched in response to the first phase of Covid-19, the Covid Home Assessment and Treatment Team (CHATT) and the Care Home Assessment and Rapid Response Team (CHARRT) will be used.

Mr Ashford said: ’The CHATT Team was established to deliver treatment and care support to individuals with Covid who aren’t acutely unwell to enable them to remain in their own homes.

’The CHARRT team proactively support care homes, learning disability homes and sheltered housing complexes to assist in the development of outbreak plans, staffing resilience plans, infection control audits and advanced care planning for complex residents.

’The CHARRT team also provides rapid response support for care facilities who have a positive case to help them manage the case to reduce the impact on other residents and staff and prevent onward transmission.

’Both the CHATT and CHARRT teams are in an "on call" state and ready to respond should a need for either of these teams arise.’