Our Healthcare System
The population of the Isle of Wight is served by a healthcare system that operates principally on the Island. Whilst some aspects of specialist, acute care are provided off the Island, the primary care, acute, mental health, community care, social care and emergency care needs are all met by providers who are all co-located on the Island.
Primary Care
Primary care services on the Isle of Wight, in other words those provided by General Practitioners (GPs) and other primary care professionals to help manage and treat common illnesses and long-term conditions, are provided by 12 practices and 84* GPs operating across the Island. Practices vary in size as does the number of registered patients that each practice sees, ranging from between 3,500 – 15,500 patients. All practices have been given a ‘Good’ or above rating by the Care Quality Commission.
GPs care for the total population of around 140,000 people all of the time. During key seasonal periods, GPs will also provide temporary care to a large number of tourists visiting the Island.
*Number varies.
Community Care
Community services are delivered to patients at home, in local community hubs and at St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight by a wide range of professionals and voluntary services. These include those provided by the hospital such as district nursing, health visiting, community nursing teams, a primary dental care service, orthotics, inpatient rehabilitation and community post-acute stroke wards. They work alongside others like Health & Wellbeing Coaches, Social Prescribers, Care Coordinators, the Living Well and Early Help Service, Pharmacists and others to help people manage their care and general wellbeing in or closer to their home.
Hospital Care
The Isle of Wight NHS Trust is the only integrated acute, community, mental health and ambulance care provider in England. Established in April 2012, the Trust provides a full range of health services both at its St Mary’s Hospital site in Newport and in the community across the Island.
St Mary’s has 246 beds and handles around 22,685 admissions per year and is the main base for delivering acute services for the Island’s population. Services include A&E and the Urgent Care Service (by referral only), emergency medicine and surgery, planned surgery, intensive care, comprehensive maternity, NICU and paediatric services.
Social Care
Social Care services are provided in the main by the Isle of Wight Council, the Island’s unitary authority established in 1995. The council runs both adult’s and children’s social care services with access to expert practitioners across both services. The council introduced its new strategy Care Closer to Home in 2017, which is already seeing a 39 per cent reduction in the rate of permanent admissions to care homes for those aged 65 and over. There are also a number of independently run care providers on the Island providing care services for children and adults and many individual carers, both informal and formal, supporting people across the Island.
Commissioning Services
The Island’s health and care services are commissioned (planned and bought) by the Integrated Care Board, with the exception of some areas of specialised commissioning which are covered by NHS England. The board reviews the healthcare needs of the Island population and decides what services need to be purchase to meet these and, once purchased, they monitor the delivery of these checking quality, capacity and resources.
Working Together
The Island’s health and care services come together as a local care system under the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Integrated Care System (ICS) with its own Integrated Care Board. The local Integrated Care Partnership is an alliance of NHS, local government and health partners who will work together to improve the care, health and wellbeing of the population of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Locally this partnership has been preparing the Island’s Health and Care Plan, shaped by public consultation, which will set out health and care priorities for the next three years (2022 to 2025).
It’s previous plan (2019-2022) set out priorities to improve care across the Island, build on the Island’s shared vision for person-centred care, delivered closer to home. A copy of the plan can be found here.
