Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I am surprised at the Deputy's question. St. Vincent's and the Mater in Dublin are two cancer centres with co-located facilities. There will be a single clinical governance on the site. Clearly, the whole purpose of the initiative is to free up approximately 1,000 beds. In the case of these six hospitals, we are talking about 600 beds. Those 600 beds will be provided for €80 million in addition to 300 day beds that are used for private patients, so we will get 600 inpatient beds and 300 day beds for €80 million. At the moment for €80 million we would get approximately 230 inpatient beds so it is terrific value for money.

In the main, the same consultants will work in both. Under the new contract of employment the private activity of consultants is greatly restricted. The idea is that the private work on fee-paying patients, who are paying themselves or through their medical insurance, would be done in the co-located facility. The idea is that the two hospitals would complement each other. When we announced this initiative, hospitals were free to apply to participate. The hospital boards, and in particular the medical boards, of the hospitals chose to apply for sanction under the initiative.

The idea for the initiative came from a group of consultants in a regional hospital, who suggested to me that if they could free up the 70 beds used by private patients they would cover those beds for public patients if a private facility could be built adjoining their hospital. When the idea was researched and analysed under the public sector benchmark, it proved it would deliver terrific value for money for the taxpayers. In terms of the capital cost, it delivers the beds for less than 50% of the cost of doing it the traditional way. In terms of the running costs, instead of getting 230 beds, we are getting 600 inpatient beds and approximately 300 beds in the rest of the hospital that are used for fee-paying patients but are not ring-fenced for private patients.

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