Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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662. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated cost of increasing the number of hospital beds by 1,500; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4742/20]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The HSE advised in 2019, that the average daily running cost of an in-patient hospital bed across acute hospitals is €878 per night. This represents the in-patient cost of a hospital bed including clinical staffing, theatres, laboratories, non-clinical staffing and cleaning, maintenance and other running costs. The cost includes critical care and ward beds but they are not separately identifiable.

This represents the fully absorbed cost, (2019) which includes treatment and care costs (such as diagnostics and theatres) as well as the running costs such as heating, lighting and servicing equipment, but excludes capital and depreciation. In addition, this figure does not include other associated hospital costs such as day-case, outpatient and emergency department costs.

In relation to capital expenditure, several factors determine the capital cost of a hospital bed. These include the nature of the bed (day case, in-patient/overnight, intensive/critical care, etc.), and the bed’s location (within an existing hospital, within a new extension to an existing hospital or through the development of a new hospital). As such, there is no one capital cost for providing an additional hospital bed.

A review of acute hospital beds currently in construction or recently completed determined an average capital cost per bed of €375,000, including some enabling costs. ICU/HDU beds can cost up to €1m per bed.

However, these figures do not represent a universal capital cost for hospital beds. Larger projects will require additional developments on acute hospital sites (for instance the installation of bigger kitchens, OPD, utility enhancements or relocation of services) which would incur additional costs.