Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this Topical Issue matter today, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly.

As the Deputy is aware, the cross-party Sláintecare report in 2017 articulated a new vision for healthcare in Ireland, including the provision of elective only hospitals and providing protected capacity for elective care. This policy has also been informed by a number of subsequent policy documents and Government decisions including the 2017 Sláintecare report, the Sláintecare implementation strategy and the national development plan in 2018, the programme for Government in 2020, the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy and Action Plan 2021-2023 and, finally, the new national elective ambulatory care strategy, which was agreed by the Government in December 2021.

This new strategy aims to change the way in which day cases, scheduled procedures, surgeries, scans and outpatient services can be better arranged to ensure greater capacity in the future and help to address waiting lists at a national level. The development of additional capacity will be provided through dedicated, stand-alone elective hospitals in counties Cork, Galway and Dublin.

The elective care scope of service will be developed in two phases commencing with day cases, diagnostics and outpatients, and then by inpatient treatment. On this basis, the elective care centres will be designed to provide sufficient capacity to facilitate further phases, including some elective inpatient capacity, thereby providing a sustainable and strategic response to cater for the highly dynamic landscape of healthcare policy and practice.

It is important to note that the locations chosen will allow for new facilities of a size and scale to implement a national elective care programme that will tackle waiting lists on a national basis. This means that the new facilities will be designed to maximise their capacity and, in doing so, will operate to meet the demands of as wide a catchment area as possible, extending beyond existing and future health areas including the mid-west. The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is conscious of the desires expressed by Deputy O'Donnell for a dedicated elective hospital in Limerick.

I would say to Deputy O'Donnell that the locations were chosen in line with good practice, which suggests that in order to maximise economies of scale, dedicated, stand-alone elective centres should be as big as is reasonably possible to meet identified demand while providing appropriate population coverage. Locating the new facilities in counties Cork, Dublin and Galway will enable the provision of a national service while aiming to maximise the coverage of the elective care centres as far as is reasonably possible.

A central point of introducing these new facilities is not that they will only benefit the subset of the population that sit within their direct catchment, but rather that the introduction of a new delivery capability into the public healthcare system will benefit the whole population, including those who do not fall within the immediate geographical catchment.

An additional elective facility in Limerick would have a minimal impact on population coverage relative to the significant increased investment to build and operate. The Minister expects to bring an update to the Government very shortly and the preliminary business cases will be published when approved by the Government. I hope that when they are published, the significant and material benefits for the people of Limerick and the mid-west will be evident.

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