Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

291. To ask the Minister for Health the progress in respect of the new national children's hospital project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4917/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The previous Government's decision to locate the new children's hospital at the St James's campus was based on the over-riding priority of best clinical outcomes for our children and, in particular, the sickest of these. That decision is unequivocally supported by this Government and by me as Minister. The planned new facilities will provide us with the means to deliver on improved health outcomes for children, especially the sickest children in Ireland.

As announced in June 2015, the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital will relocate in time to the St James's campus, achieving tri-location of adult, paediatric and maternity services. The National Maternity Strategy, published in January 2016, reaffirms the delivery of tri-located maternity services on the campus with the new children's hospital and St James's Hospital. A site for the proposed maternity hospital is identified in the Site Master Plan for the St James's campus, and the new children's hospital design has incorporated the required operational links with both maternity and adult hospitals.

The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) is the statutory body responsible for planning, designing, building and equipping the new children's hospital. The granting of planning permission in April 2016 for the hospital, satellite centres and related buildings was a huge and very welcome milestone for the project. Enabling works (site clearance and demolition), which began this summer on the campus of St. James's, are advancing well.

The Children's Hospital Group Board is bringing together the three existing children's hospitals, with a focus on integrating into one organisation well before transitioning to the new children's hospital. A General Scheme of a Bill is at an advanced stated to merge the three existing children's hospitals into a single hospital body in advance of the move to the new facilities, which will plan for the transition of services, integrate the existing services, and in due course run the new unified hospital.

The NPHDB has recently completed evaluation of the tenders, received at the end of October 2016, for the main and specialist contractors for the new children's hospital and for the two Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Satellite Centres at Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals. My priority is to make progress on the new hospital as soon as possible this year so we can ensure children, young people and their families have the facilities they need and deserve.