Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 October 2017
399. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Health the progress on the construction of the national children's hospital, including changes to the overall cost estimates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42981/17]
View answerFollowing the Government’s April 2017 decision to give the green light for the new children's hospital project construction investment, detailed discussions with the preferred tenderer and the hundreds of specialists who are part of the construction team were concluded over the summer period. The construction contract for the building of the main children’s hospital and the Paediatric Outpatients and Urgent Care Centres contract were signed in August. The new children’s hospital will be completed by the middle of 2022. The Paediatric Outpatients and Urgent Care Centre at Connolly will open in 2019 followed by the second one at Tallaght in 2020 in advance of the opening of the main hospital in 2022. Site preparatory work has continued throughout the year and the construction phase of the project has now commenced with excavation work on the main site underway. The capital cost of the design, build and equipment programme for which the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, NPHDB, is responsible, is €983 million, of which €916 million is Exchequer capital and €67 million is to be funded through commercial and philanthropy sources.
The capital project to build the new children’s hospital and satellite centres will only provide buildings. The overall programme to deliver the new Children’s Hospital entails both a complex merger of three different voluntary hospitals and a new build. A major programme of work is underway focused on transformative service change to merge three separate hospitals while maintaining existing services, patient safety and quality at three existing sites until transition is complete. On 29 August, the General Scheme for the Children’s Health Bill was published on the Department of Health’s website. The General Scheme has been referred to the Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health for pre-legislative scrutiny. This legislation will create a single statutory entity to run the new children’s hospital. The new body will take over the services of the existing three Dublin children’s hospitals and run the new children’s hospital. The Bill provides for the establishment of a single body to govern and manage paediatric services, as well as to facilitate planning for the transition of staff and services to the outpatient and urgent care centres which will open several years ahead of the new children’s hospital opening. It will also support the organisation of the clinical and non-clinical services in an integrated manner across the existing sites before the move to the new facilities.
This new hospital is an extraordinary opportunity to transform paediatric services in Ireland by bringing together patients and staff from across the three existing children’s hospitals into a single organisation as the national tertiary paediatric service with the facilities and necessary status to take on a leadership role nationally in relation to paediatric healthcare and as an international player in paediatric research and innovation.
