Health and Social Care Minister David Ashford has revealed that a ’Return to Health’ document will be published tomorrow (Saturday) setting out the ’restoration of services in a carefully managed way’.
It will set out how his department will restart certain services across the Island.
Mr Ashford told a media briefing: ’Today marks a minor milestone as we start to talk about starting the journey towards normality for our health and care services.
’Teams in the department have been working hard in planning to reintroduce those services which were suspended or reduced as part of our immediate response to the crisis.
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’We are keen to share these plans with the public.’
He added that having achieved a ’significant reduction’ in the spread of Covid-19 ’we are keen to see health and social care services that have had to be suspended resume in the near future’.
He said: ’We are aware of the potentially negative impact of further delaying many usual health care services.
’It is a balancing act. On the one hand we want to present a comprehensive health and care system for the public.
’On the other we must consider the threat of the virus that is still circulating in the community.
’So it is important we plan the process of restoring services carefully.
’We need to keep resources available for dealing with Covid-19 and to be able to increase or decrease the number of beds available as required.
’It’s a hard truth but the potential to have large numbers of acutely unwell Covid-19 patients remains and is not behind us.
’So we need to ensure our staff and patients are safe and we do not contribute to a rise in cases.’
He described it as ’simple equation; the lower the number of beds needed for Covid-19,the greater is the ability to deliver services for other conditions and to meet other social care needs.
’Tomorrow (Saturday) we are publishing Return to Health, the department’s broad approach to restoring services.
’Restoration of services will be done in a carefully managed way and we will be communicating a fortnighly programme of changes.’
He said the first ’block’ over the next two weeks will be based on resuming some time sensitive urgent and elective procedures and activity.
They will also look at restoring screening programmes ’although these can only happen when the services we rely on in the UK are also up and running.’
Among the services being looked at in this first phase are endoscopy, general surgery, urology and certain cancer care and delivery services.
In mental health there will be an increase in the number of in-person appointments and therapies for those who will benefit most from face-to-face contact.
’While some day services have had to close our mental health teams have discovered new ways of connecting with service users which have worked really well and which we hope to continue.’
Mr Ashford said the service was aware throughout the crisis that demand was likely to increase during the changing social circumstances that we have all been experiencing.
’It has not been easy for many people to nurture their own wellbeing in challenging circumstances and times and this has been taken into account as we plan the future.’
Mr Ashford said they were ’not yet ready’ to allow the return of dentistry services to resume to normal. Aerosol generating procedures ’are still a major risk’.
However in this first block of changes they would be building on the emergency care available in dentistry with an expansion of services including placing of temporary fillings and re-cementing of crowns.
Mr Ashford said the journey ahead was ’an unfolding story’.
Mr Ashford was asked by Isle of Man Newspapers reporter Jess Ward what assurances he can give to patients who may be feeling nervous about going to hospital settings as certain services were resumed.
He said: ’I know it is going to be very nervous for people and I know people are going to be exceptionally worried, it’s a nervous time for a lot of people as they slowly see the changes coming through.
’But the one thing I would say is we take all precautions in the health setting to ensure it is safe for people and the risk of them contracting Covid-19 in that health setting is minimised as much as it can be.
’But we do recognise that there is concern and if anyone is invited to attend for any procedure and they have any concerns I would invite them to get in touch with the clinic or with the consultant’s office and to discuss it through to get some reassurance.’