Evening move for emergency department waiting area

The waiting area for the emergency department at the Isle of Man's main hospital will be relocated for six hours on Wednesday during a planned water outage.

Manx Care said those waiting would be accommodated in the radiology waiting space at Noble's Hospital from 20:00 GMT on Wednesday.

The outage is required as part of ongoing work to upgrade the hospital's infrastructure, which will see water switched off on the West Wing from 21:00.

The healthcare provider said preparations had taken place to ensure minimal disruption and the team "did not anticipate any significant impact on patient care".

The island's health care provider said the outage was necessary to replace key pipework and install new valves within the hospital's water system.

The upgrades would "enhance the long-term resilience of the infrastructure", and allow similar switch offs to be "localised to affected areas, rather than requiring water shutdowns across larger sections of the hospital", Manx Care said.

The temporary move will see hand wash basins put in place to ensure infection prevention and control, with alternative water and toilet access points identified for staff and hospital visitors across other affected wards.

Manx Care said dedicated teams would be on site to co-ordinate the outage and resolve any issues, and signage would be in place to direct people to the right waiting area until the water was switched back on, which is expected to be at 03:00 on Thursday.

Maintaining the "resilience of our critical infrastructure" was a priority and the team had taken steps to ensure "disruption is minimised for our frontline staff and patients", the health care provider added.

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