Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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605. To ask the Minister for Health when work will commence on the new paediatric outpatient and urgent care satellite centre in Blanchardstown Hospital; the number of persons to be provided for; when it is scheduled to open; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10181/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The satellite centres on the campuses of Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals will be an integral part of, and come under the governance of, the new children’s hospital. This will include staffing, quality assurance, education and training, and branding. In addition, staff of the main hospital will rotate through the centres.

Each centre will provide urgent care as well as secondary outpatient services including rapid access general paediatric clinics. The aim is to improve geographic access to urgent care for children in the Greater Dublin Area and support primary and community care paediatrics, as well as reducing Emergency Department and outpatient attendance at the main site. The satellite centres at Connolly will beeasily accessible to local populations for the management of minor illness and injuries and attendance at outpatient and chronic disease clinics.

Each centre will provide consultant-led urgent care from staff of the new children’s hospital with observation beds (4-6 hour) and appropriate diagnostics. Each centre is projected to deal with 25,000 urgent care attendances per annum.

The provision of general paediatric rapid access clinics will meet the need of primary care for access to specialist opinion (secondary paediatric opinion)-currently many children are referred to tertiary specialists when they don’t need that level of expertise, resulting in longer waiting lists. The satellite centres will also provide general community and paediatric clinics including developmental paediatrics, multidisciplinary care for children with chronic stable conditions and other outpatient services. Each centre is expected to cater for a minimum of 15,000 outpatient attendances per annum.

Child sexual abuse unit examination, observation and therapy rooms will be provided in the satellite centres. The satellite centre at Connolly will also include two HSE paediatric care primary care dental services operating theatres.

I intend to bring a Memorandum to Government on the new children’s hospital in the coming weeks. It is intended that the contract for construction of the main hospital and satellite contracts will be awarded end Q1 2017, subject to all necessary approvals. The transition of services to the new children’s hospital is scheduled to commence in Q3 2021 with transition of services to the satellite centres commencing in Q3 2018 for Connolly.