Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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459. To ask the Minister for Health for an update on the elective hospital for Cork; the amount spent to date; and the date it is expected to first open and be fully operational. [45719/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has set out its plan to deliver new standalone national elective hospitals which will cater for high volume, low complexity (i.e. non-emergency) cases. Between them, the hospitals will deliver nearly 1 million procedures, treatments, and diagnostics every year. Separating elective and non-elective care will further help to free up capacity in existing healthcare facilities to better address unscheduled care needs.

In 2021, the Government approved the National Elective Ambulatory Strategy to establish the elective hospitals in Cork, Galway, and Dublin. In December 2022, the government approved Preliminary Business Cases for this programme as a whole and for preferred sites in Cork and Galway. The business case for Dublin is currently under development and will be brought to Government in due course.

The HSE as the sponsoring agency for the development of the new Elective Hospitals, will shortly appoint an Architect-led Integrated Design Team to provide architectural, design and engineering services alongside a Project Control Team which will support the HSE to manage, control and administer their design and construction programme.

I have asked the HSE, as Sponsoring Agency with day-to-day responsibility for the delivery of the new elective hospital in Cork to respond to you directly in relation to progress on the project. At all times, the Elective Care Programme has followed the requirements of D/PENDR’s Infrastructure Guidelines (previously Public Spending Code). These guidelines note it is imperative for Sponsoring Agencies that output requirements for infrastructural investment proposals are accurately, precisely, and comprehensively specified at the start or as early as possible in the investment proposal delivery process – this is the primary purpose of Design and Planning. Without this diligent investment proposal preparation at earlier phases of a project lifecycle, projects may require amendment after project design or construction has begun. Such changes inevitably give rise to delays or additional costs.

The process of extensively planning projects at the early stages of project development before construction begins can help to reduce cost and schedule risk in major projects and programmes. However, there is a cost associated with this in order to mitigate the risks of greater costs later in the project development lifecycle. In relation to the Elective Hospitals Programme, the following work has been carried out on behalf of the Department of Health: