Outline for future of Isle of Wight NHS services

The Local Care Board has made their recommendation to the Isle of Wight NHS and CCG about the future for NHS services on the Island. OnTheWight has initial responses from some IW politicians.

The Local Care Board have revealed their recommendations for the future of the Isle of Wight health service today (Friday).

As revealed last week, one of the options was to transfer all services except A&E and maternity to the mainland, however, it was not the final choice for officials.

Option four is being recommended, but the five options considered were:

• Option One: Current state/business as usual – current service offering and delivery of operational improvement and demand management plans
• Option Two: Flexible workforce – Current service offering with more joint working arrangements with mainland providers across clinical specialties
• Option Three: Emergency and elective centre with enhanced emergency surgical and critical care support from the mainland – Flexible workforce with mainland providers. Transfer of high risk/complex surgical procedures and patients needing Level 3 (advanced support) critical care after the first 24 hours
• Option Four: Emergency and elective centre with enhanced emergency and elective surgical, critical care and paediatric support from the mainland – Flexible workforce with mainland providers. Transfer of high risk /complex emergency & elective surgery; all patients requiring critical care for more than 24 hours (including high acuity medical patients e.g. acute cardiac requiring Critical Care support); neonates requiring Level 3 (advanced support) Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) support; and children needing more than 24 hours inpatient care (with exclusions)
Option 5: Enhanced urgent care centre with extended support from the mainland – Enhanced urgent care centre with the majority of patients needing acute care for more
than a few days or surgery requiring an inpatient stay transferred to the mainland.