Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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275. To ask the Minister for Health to set out the number of paediatric outpatients beds to be provided in Tallaght hospital urgent care facility following the transfer of the accident and emergency department to the National Children's Hospital; the opening hours of the urgent care centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18452/17]

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, Wicklow, Kildare and parts of Meath, and support primary and community care paediatrics, as well as reducing Emergency Department and outpatient attendance at the main site.

Each centre will provide consultant-led urgent care from staff of the new children’s hospital and appropriate diagnostics. Each centre is projected to deal with 25,000 urgent care attendances per annum. There will be 12 outpatient consulting rooms located in the satellite centres, with each centre having 6 short-stay observation beds (4-6 hours) and 10 assessment bays.

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.

The satellite centres will be open during the known busiest daytime and evening hours and closed during the night when departments are at their quietest. It is anticipated that the urgent care centres in Tallaght and Connolly will open from 08.00 to 24.00, diagnostic services from 08.00 to 20.00 and outpatient services from 08.00 to 18.00.