Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The National Elective Ambulatory Care Strategy was agreed by Government in 2021. Significant additional capacity to better enable the separation of scheduled and unscheduled care will be provided through a national network of dedicated, standalone Elective Hospitals. The Preliminary Business Case, approved by Government in December 2022, identified St Stephen’s Hospital as the preferred site for a new Elective Hospital in Cork.

Since that approval, the HSE has been progressing its plans, defining the shape and scale of the new hospitals as well as progressing procurement, ICT and workforce planning.

The HSE is also progressing the procurement of an integrated Design Team to provide the full scope of design services for the Elective Hospitals. The preliminary qualification stage for the Architect-Led Design Team closed on 15 January, and will close for the complementary Project Control team on 22 January – with a very positive market response thus far. Following conclusion of the procurement process, the HSE should appoint the successful teams by the Spring.

The HSE is also addressing waiting lists in the shorter term by expediting the development of ‘Surgical Hubs’ at locations across the country – including in Cork. The Cork Surgical Hub will be based at Cork University Hospital and the planning application for this has already been submitted. Enabling works have commenced in parallel to the planning and procurement processes in order to expedite delivery timelines as far as possible.