Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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875. To ask the Minister for Health the status of development for two centres (details supplied); the planned opening date for each of the two centres; and the planned opening times for the two centres. [34501/17]

Simon 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.

On 26 April 2017 the Government approved the investment required to enable the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board to award the construction contracts for the building of the main children’s hospital on the St. James’s Hospital campus and the two Paediatric Outpatients and Urgent Care Centres on the Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals campuses. Enabling works on the main site are

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 construction of the Paediatric OPD and Urgent Care Satellite Centres is scheduled to be completed with a phased opening from Q4 2018 for Connolly and Q1 2019 for Tallaght and the new children’s hospital in 2021.

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.