Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The cross-party Sláintecare report of 2017 articulated a new vision for healthcare, including the provision of elective-only hospitals, 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 2018, the national development plan 2018, the programme for Government 2020, the Sláintecare implementation strategy and action plan 2021-2023 and finally the new national elective ambulatory care strategy which was agreed by 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 reduce waiting times at a national level. The development of additional capacity will be provided through dedicated, stand-alone elective hospitals in 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 future 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.

The locations chosen for the new elective care centres will allow for new facilities of a size and scale to implement a national elective care programme. 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. Locating the new facilities in Cork, Dublin and Galway will enable us to cover more than four fifths of the entire population of the State.

I am conscious of the strong public support for these new facilities and the desire expressed by many, including the Deputy, for them to be developed as quickly as possible. I say to him that it is important we follow due process with regard to developing our plans to ensure value for money from this significant strategic development. This means that we are following the public spending code process. As part of this, detailed programme and project preliminary business cases for Cork and Galway have been developed and undergone both internal and external assurance. These will be coming to the Government very shortly for approval in principle. I would not wish to pre-judge the process, but can assure the Deputy that we will make an announcement on the locations of the emerging preferred sites once that approval is given.

See this speech in context