Noble’s Hospital is ready to treat critical care patients if the north west of England reaches capacity.

Health and Social Care Minister David Ashford was asked an urgent question by Julie Edge (Onchan) given the worsening Covid-19 situation in England.

The Minister said if hospitals in Merseyside and the north west were unable to accept Manx patients, the department would be ready to reorganise care at Noble’s Hospital to provide more intensive care unit (ICU) beds or to transfer patients to a hospital elsewhere in the UK.

Mr Ashford said: ’The department works closely with Merseyside and North West England hospital trusts on a daily basis to accommodate patients based on clinical priority and need, on the same basis a patients resident in England.

’Merseyside and North West England hospital trusts have not refused any air ambulance patient transfer which we are aware of since March 2020 requiring off-Island ICU or ITU beds Merseyside and North West England.’

If this option was to be lost, Mr Ashford said the DHSC could utilise Noble’s Hospital, increasing the number of intensive care beds there, or by utilising its ’wider off-island hospital networks for emergency transfers requiring ICU/ITU beds as appropriate’.

Pressed further by Ms Edge (pictured), Mr Ashford had to admit that NHS trusts in England will focus on treating their own patients as a priority and there is no guarantee that they will take Manx patients.

’But what we have is a network throughout the entire United Kingdom that we can call on,’ he added.

Mr Ashford said that so far this year, fewer than five people had been transferred to the UK for intensive care treatment and that ’we can go back to what we did with our Covid-19 regime where we can double our ICU capacity on-island if required’.