Plan to turn Isle of Man Covid 111 line into broader help service

A budget of £1.3m was set out to fund the Covid 111 hotline until 2023

The Isle of Man's 111 Covid-19 helpline will be repurposed into a "single front door for health services", the health minister has said.

Introduced in March 2020 to advise those with the virus, it now manages testing and vaccination queries.

Lawrie Hooper said turning the helpline into a broader, non-urgent service would help take pressure off the emergency department and GP surgeries.

The changes are due to be made by April 2023.

Currently under the control of the Cabinet Office, funding of £1.37m has been budgeted to transfer it to Manx Care and keep the response team in place for the next financial year.

The arms-length operator of the island's health service has been tasked with enabling it to continue deal with coronavirus enquiries for as "long as required", before transforming it into a "single point of clinical triage" for the public.

Mr Hooper said the line had been "really successful" during the pandemic and would still be needed in its current form "at least for the short term".

The public would benefit from having a "single point of contact" with Manx Care in future, rather than "worrying where to go to access advice", he said.

"Knowing where the right place to go is sometimes actually quite hard, so to be able to pick up the phone and ask for help will hopefully improve people's experience of interacting with the health service", he added.