The decision to site the main children’s hospital was made by Government in 2012. The decision to locate the hospital on St James’s Hospital campus was clinically-led and made in the best interests of children. Dáil Éireann endorsed this decision in November 2012 on foot of a Government motion.
Practising clinicians had expressed their full support for the St James’s site, recognising the clinical benefits of co-location. By bringing together the full spectrum of sub-specialties in paediatrics and neonatology on a single campus, supported by adult services sub-specialities, a degree of scale and critical mass can be attained that will support better outcomes from the most complex treatment and care for the sickest children and young people of Ireland.
St James’s Hospital is Ireland’s largest and leading adult teaching and research-intensive hospital. It has the greatest number of clinical specialties and national services in the acute adult hospital system. It also has the widest range of adult sub-specialties that can support paediatric services, ensuring patients with conditions whose prevalence does not warrant paediatric-only consultants, get the best support. There are many specialists that work between both adult and children's hospitals already and this is likely to increase once the new children’s hospital opens. The tri location of the new children’s hospital (NCH), and the future relocation of the Coombe maternity hospital, on a shared campus with St. James’s Hospital will create a centre of medical expertise to support research, innovation and education.
In April 2019, the PwC conducted a report titled “New Children's Hospital, Independent review of escalation in costs”. This report did not examine an alternative to the St James’s site as the report concludes that at that time, taking any alternative course of action, other than continuing with the build, would have in all likelihood resulted in significant delay, increased cost and the possibility that the hospital would not be finished.
The NCH project has had significant challenges but infrastructure projects like this are complex and difficult and we see these same challenges in projects internationally. This is not unique to the health sector, to the public sector, or to Ireland. Importantly, however, with challenges come learnings. It is important to ensure that lessons learned from previous projects, including the NCH, inform all future investment decisions
For example, as we move forward through the tender stages of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) project, mechanisms and processes have been put in place to navigate and avoid, as much as we can, many of the challenges faced on the NCH project. The NMH project team have had ongoing engagement with the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board to inform the development of the NMH project. Lessons learned from the NCH have been, and will continue to be, incorporated into the plans for the NMH.
The new Infrastructure Guidelines also require these learnings to be applied to all future capital investment projects. The Department of Health is continuing to work to ensure proposals and projects for capital investment are in compliance with the Infrastructure Guidelines requirements, including the application of learnings from other projects such as the NCH.
