Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Senator Fitzgerald mentioned staffing. As stated by the Minister in previous debates, the project agreement between the HSE and the private provider requires that the private facility in each hospital will be capable of treating all private patients that are currently in the associated public hospital. The specific minimum requirements for the co-located hospitals include the ability to admit private patients directly from public hospital accident and emergency departments, primary care centres and GPs on a 24-hour, seven-day basis; the establishment of joint research and development programmes, clinical governance, performance management requirements and documented service level agreements; and the sharing of information and records management.

It has been suggested that the hospitals are not supportive of the co-location proposal. In fact, the boards of both St. James's and Beaumont hospitals have indicated they want to participate in the initiative. I reiterate that we want to increase bed capacity within our health system. This method is the least demanding on the Exchequer and is the quickest and most expeditious way to ensure we get the required additional capacity in the health system. This will be for the good of public patients.