Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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514. To ask the Minister for Health if his Department told the Committee on the Future of Healthcare that based on current tender returns and space standards, the construction costs of a replacement hospital bed is in the region of €325,000 not including equipping costs, and that annual ongoing revenue costs of operating an additional hospital bed run to €78,000 per year; and if so, if the information provided by the HSE in response to Parliamentary Question No. 425 of 17 December 2015 is accurate in view of his Department's submission. [40033/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The submission to the Dáil Committee for the Future of Healthcare quoted €325,000 for the capital cost of a bed, and €78,000 for running costs. The figure of €325,000 is based on the capital costs of building new ward space to accommodate an additional bed, and does not include additional equipping costs, or the costs of providing the necessary associated hospital infrastructure (theatres, laboratories etc.) that would be required to service large expansions in bed capacity.

In the context of a larger expansion of hospital bed capacity, the HSE estimate that the total costs of the development of a bed could be around €1 million per bed.

Similarly, the figure of €78,000 annual running costs (€500 per week) provided to the Dáil Committee for the Future of Healthcare is derived from estimates for the provision of additional beds within existing infrastructure, and not those associated with any substantial expansion of facilities and staffing. In the context of a major expansion of bed capacity, the HSE estimate that the running cost of a bed would be in the region of €839 per day, giving a total annual cost per bed of €306,000.

The figures quoted in the submission to the Committee for the Future of Healthcare, and the information provided by the HSE in response to Parliamentary Question No. 425 of 17 December 2015, apply in different circumstances.

All costings above are subject to very significant caveats, as considerations such as the bed type (e.g. intensive care, coronary care, high dependency, and general ward), specialty usage (e.g. orthopaedics, neurosurgery, general medicine) and current location, infrastructure and layout of individual hospital sites, all of which impact on the prospective costs of bed capacity provision.