The head of Manx Care says they are working to put the Private Patients Unit at Noble’s Hospital back on track.

It is still not fully-functioning more than four years after it was closed for refurbishment.

Private inpatient and the majority of private day case procedures were suspended in January 2019 and the Private Patient Unit (Ward 19) closed ‘temporarily’ for an initial period of 18 months.

This was to allow for ‘essential patient safety remedial works in line with infection, prevention and control standards’, Health Minister Lawrie Hooper said in a written Tynwald answer last month.

He confirmed that the unit had made net revenue of £0.5m between 2015-16 and 2018-19, falling to just over £400,000 in 2019-20.

Some day case work (endoscopy), outpatient and diagnostic private work has continued, with the net contribution generated between April to the end of August this year being £273,685.

Asked why reopening of the unit had been delayed, Manx Care chief executive officer Teresa Cope said: ‘It’s partially back up and running. It’s doing out-patients, diagnostics and some treatment room procedures. It is not fully functioning in terms of doing in-patient elective activity.’

She said there were multiple factors in its delayed reopening. ‘Some of that is around indemnity arrangements for our consultants in order to do private activity,’ she added.

‘It’s also getting the governance and tariff systems correct to make sure ultimately if we are working with, say, insurance companies, we can make profits from this.

‘Insurance companies have a particular tariff price that we have to work within so we have to make sure we can offer this service and pay for all the consumables and staff and ultimately still make a profit.

‘It is not a business we would want to be in unless the Private Patients Unit is making a profit for the organisation.’

She said when Manx Care was launched, it inherited very long waiting lists for NHS patients and a significant vacancy factor of more than 20%.

In that context, she said, it had not been the ‘right time’ to try to re-establish private patient services ‘until we had stabilised the organisation in terms of its workforce, its quality, its safety and its governance’.

‘We recognise that the private patient service is really valued by the island and incredibly important,’ she said.

‘We are trying to work to put our private patients unit back on track but well-governed and ultimately making a profit for the organisation. So that has taken us longer but we are very comfortable that we are doing it in an incremental way.

‘We must make sure our doctors are full indemnified for the work that they do and that it something which is still outstanding in order for us to do that more complex work.

‘So we are very comfortable that we have built our private patient activity and income focusing on out-patient and diagnostics and then the treatment room procedures and we are planning to be able to do the more complex procedures in due course.’

Replying to a Tynwald question last month, Health Minister Lawrie Hooper said Manx Care has not sought the necessary written approval from his department for the reopening of Ward 19 for private in-patients.

Announcing the ‘temporary’ closure of the unit, the then Health Minister David Ashford said in October 2018 that it was not ‘fit for purpose’ and private healthcare at Noble’s would be rebranded, with a new code of practice for consultants doing private work and new costing mechanisms. He said a third-party operator could be brought in.