€11m may have been wasted on Mater designs

OVER €11 million spent drawing up the original plans to relocate Temple Street Children’s Hospital may go to waste because they predate the decision to build a national children’s hospital.

The original plans formed part of the overall Mater and Children’s Hospital Development (MCHD) project — an integrated development plan — which was halted in November 2005 to allow a nationwide review of paediatric services.

The original plan was for a 170-bed children’s hospital, with specially-designed play areas on all wards, on the Mater campus following the relocation of Temple Street.

However, this site must now accommodate a 380-bed children’s hospital because it is the location chosen for a national tertiary paediatric centre on foot of the paediatric review.

This means the detailed designs drawn up for the relocation of Temple Street may be redundant if they cannot be adapted to tally with plans for the new national children’s hospital.

The Mater has admitted it does not know if the original plans will be part of the revised development brief.

A statement from the Mater said: “Regarding the spend to date on a children’s hospital at the Mater campus: our view is that we will not know how much of the plans done already will be relevant to the design plan now being developed by RKW.”

Rawlinson Kelly & Whittlestone Ltd (RKW) are the healthcare strategy consultants contracted by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to develop the framework brief for the new children’s hospital. They were not involved in the original design plans.

They are coming on board six years after the commencement of the Mater Campus development project which, to date, has cost taxpayers €57m.

A Mater spokesperson said that it was “extremely difficult to identify definitively” what has been spent on the original Temple Street relocation, because it was part of an integrated development.

“A rough estimate would be €11m,” he said.

The HSE has also conceded there is no guarantee the original plan will form any part of the final proposals.

Moreover, the HSE intends to invite paediatricians from other children’s hospitals to have an input into the new framework development brief and there is no guarantee they will agree with the original children’s hospital plans.

The Mater said until the design plan is concluded, “we will not know the level of divergence between the plans originally proposed ... and the newly proposed tertiary National Children’s Hospital”.

A statement said the MCHD team “anticipates that a significant portion of the existing design work ... which will be available to the National Paediatric Development Board (NPDB) and whatever design team will be appointed to the new project, could be utilised in the planning of the new facility”.