St James’s tender states current facilities fall below standards

Much of the infrastructure at St James’s Hospital, Dublin, does not meet “basic healthcare standards” due to historic underinvestment, according to new tender documents from the hospital.

St James’s recently commenced a procurement process for consultancy services to assist in developing a business case for a new ambulatory care centre near the hospital.

A large outpatient department (OPD) is planned for a 12-acre site on Davitt Road, close to St James’s, to help address significant capacity challenges, the tender states.

“Almost all of the existing facilities including ED [emergency department], diagnostics, operating theatres, inpatient beds, and critical care fail to meet basic healthcare standards,” the documents note.

“There has been significant underinvestment in St James’s adult hospital and there has been almost no major capital development in the existing infrastructure for nearly 20 years. Furthermore, St James’s has lost over 150 inpatient beds since 2009.

“The underinvestment and loss of infrastructure has occurred over a time of exponential demand increase driven by population growth, improvement in medical care, and the fact that St James’s is the largest provider of complex cancer care in Ireland and the national, regional, and local provider of a range of other critical specialties.”

According to the tender, demand now exceeds capacity “and this situation is likely to deteriorate further as our population grows and ages”.

The hospital added that “there is a high risk of congestion due to the volume of activity associated with the opening of the National Children’s Hospital compounded by the significant increase in traffic since the original planning in 2016”.

The proposed off-site ambulatory centre is part of broader development plans that will see the hospital campus redeveloped in a series of phases.

When fully redeveloped, the campus will bring together St James’s Hospital, Children’s Health Ireland, and the Coombe Hospital.

Outlining its tender requirements for consultancy services, the hospital stated that the “purpose of this document is to provide a business case for phase one of the ambulatory care centre. The proposed facility will consist of 120 OPD rooms, procedure rooms, infusion suite (non-cancer), OPD radiology and urgent care centre.”

The creation of the ambulatory care centre will remove more than 80 per cent of current patient flow from the main hospital and “significantly decongest the site”, according to the hospital.

The move will also enable the development of new critical care facilities at the existing campus, including dedicated critical care blocks.

The contract for business consultancy services will run for 12 months and is valued at approximately €150,000.