Written answers

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Department of Health

National Children's Hospital Status

Photo of John LahartJohn Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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163. To ask the Minister for Health the scheduled commencement date of the satellite wing of the national children's hospital that is to be located in Tallaght; the timeframe for completion; the facilities that will be available; the timeframe for children to be transferred from Tallaght to the national children's hospital at St James's hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31603/17]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The new children’s hospital on a campus shared with St James’s Hospital will provide specialist and complex care for children and young people from all over Ireland, and with the Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Centres at Connolly and Tallaght Hospitals, will be the regional hospital for the children of the Greater Dublin area, as well as Wicklow, Kildare and parts of Meath.

The Paediatric Outpatient and Urgent Care Satellite Centres at Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals will improve geographic access to urgent care for children in the Greater Dublin Area. The two centres will support primary and community care through the provision of general community and paediatric clinics, including developmental paediatrics, multidisciplinary care for children with chronic stable conditions and other outpatient services. The centres will help to reduce Emergency Department and outpatient attendance at the new children’s hospital on a campus shared with St James’s.

Each Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Centre will provide consultant-led urgent care, with 4-6 hour observation beds, appropriate diagnostics and secondary outpatient services including rapid access general paediatric clinics as well as child sexual abuse unit examination, observation and therapy rooms. Each centre is projected to deal with 25,000 urgent care and 15,000 outpatient attendances every year.

The 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 Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Centres at 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.

The transition of services to the Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Centres is expected to commence at end 2018 (Connolly end 2018, Tallaght Q1 2019) with transition of services to the new children’s hospital at St James’s to commence in Q3 2021. The programme of work of clinical integration, people and change management and commissioning required to achieve a successful transition to the new facilities is already underway.

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