Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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498. To ask the Minister for Health if consideration will be given to the construction of hospitals devoted exclusively to elective-only procedures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2767/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In December 2021, the Government approved the National Elective Ambulatory Strategy to implement a national strategy of elective ambulatory care and to progress capital investment proposals for the establishment and operation of dedicated elective hospitals in Cork, Galway, and Dublin. The new Elective Hospitals will provide significant additional capacity, enabling the separation of scheduled and unscheduled care. This will change the way in which day cases, scheduled procedures, surgeries, scans and outpatient services can be better arranged across the country, ensuring greater capacity in the future and helping to address waiting times. It is envisaged that the new Elective Hospitals combined will cater for up to 977,700 patients/procedures annually.

On 7 December 2022, the Government approved the next stage of the Enhanced Provision of Elective Care Programme and progression of the development of new Elective Hospitals in Cork and Galway (with Dublin to follow). The locations chosen will enhance capacity and tackle waiting times on a national basis, enabling the Elective Hospitals to cover as wide an area and patient population as possible, extending beyond existing and future health areas. The preferred sites, recommended to be brought forward into the planning phase, are at St Stephen's Hospital, Sarsfield Court in Cork, and Merlin Park University Hospital in Galway. The Preliminary Business Case for Dublin will be presented for Government approval in due course.

Complementary to the development of the new Elective Hospitals, the HSE will work with Hospital Groups and forthcoming Regional Health Areas to progress proposals for a shorter-term measure to address waiting lists by developing ‘Surgical Hubs’ in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Dublin with a narrower scope of procedures. These will be modelled on the successful Reeves Centre at Tallaght University Hospital (which has significantly reduced waiting times for certain day-care procedures) and will have a shorter-term impact on waiting times. This intervention will also support efforts to consider the necessary reforms and enablers needed to separate unscheduled and scheduled care pathways that will be required by the longer-term provision of the Elective Care programme.