Manx Care: Hospital pressures beginning to ease after OPEL 4 escalation

Elective procedures continue as services move back to OPEL 3 following "exceptional demand"

Manx Care says pressures at Noble's Hospital have begun to stabilise after the organisation escalated to its highest operational pressure level over the past 48 hours.

The healthcare provider says services have now moved from OPEL 4 back to OPEL 3 as demand becomes "more manageable", although hospital services remain busy and capacity is continuing to be closely monitored.

OPEL 4 is the highest level of operational escalation and is used when pressure on healthcare services means normal operations are no longer possible and immediate action is required to protect patient safety.

Manx Care says a combination of factors led to the escalation, including very high adult bed occupancy, patients waiting more than 12 hours in the Emergency Department, and a large number of people awaiting assessment in A&E.

The organisation says planned elective procedures are continuing wherever it is safe and appropriate to do so.

However, 19 elective operations were cancelled during the height of the pressures and are now being rebooked.

Manx Care says cancelling planned care is considered a 'last resort' and is only done when necessary to ensure urgent and emergency patients can be treated safely.

It’s the second time in the past 18 months that elective capacity has been redeployed in order to support urgent and emergency care services.

Interim Executive Director of Operations Shaun Stacey said:

Our priority at all times is to keep patients safe and ensure those who need urgent care are treated as quickly as possible.

The past 48 hours have seen exceptional demand across our services, and declaring OPEL 4 enables us to take the necessary steps to manage this safely.

We recognise the impact that rescheduling appointments can have, and we are contacting all affected patients directly to re book their care at the earliest opportunity.