Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The development of primary care remains central to the Government's objective of delivering a high-quality, integrated and cost-effective health care service at community level. This involves shifting the balance of care from a hospital-centered service to one located in the community to enable people easily to access a broad spectrum of services at local level. The development of primary care centres is taking place through a combination of direct build by the State, public private partnerships, or PPPs, and operational leasing. The facilities will house GP and community nursing teams and offer additional services including physiotherapy, social work, counselling and occupational therapy.

The Coolock-Darndale primary care centre is one of 14 locations to be delivered under a single PPP project. Following a detailed tender evaluation process, the National Development Finance Agency announced the Prime-Balfour Beatty consortium as the preferred tenderer in May 2015. Subject to successful completion of financial and contractual arrangements, it is expected that construction work will commence in early 2016 and that the primary care centres, including the Coolock-Darndale centre, will be delivered during 2017.

With regard to the proposed primary care centre at Edenmore, the HSE proposes to use the operational lease mechanism. In November 2014, the HSE sought expressions of interest from interested parties for primary care centres to be delivered using the operational lease mechanism. Edenmore was one of 73 locations advertised and expressions of interest were received for this location. Following the third stage selection process, heads of terms have recently been agreed with the selected provider. In line with the normal property approval protocol of the HSE, the project will be submitted to the HSE's property review group for approval.

A major programme to develop primary care centres has been considerably advanced and I look forward in the period ahead to further developments, including those at Coolock and Darndale and in Edenmore. I hope this is of help to the Deputy.

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