Health Service Planning, Mater Misericordiae Hospital &
Temple Street Children’sHospital, Dublin (EIRE)
Client Issue: These two teaching hospitals are sited about a ¼ of a mile apart in North Dublin. Both are old & have had little upgrading in the last 50 years. Comprehensive redevelopment was sought & agreed by the Irish Government. The hospitals aimed to redevelop together on the same site adjacent to the existing adult hospital & requested our help. The hospitals not only serve a local catchment population, but also provide secondary & tertiary referral services in regional & national specialities. Closely linked to service objectives, they also required further consolidation to improve both teaching & research activities.
Solution: Preparation of a detailed planning ‘Brief’ for the redevelopment of both hospitals, taking into consideration the above stated goals. The Final Construction Brief was published in 2001 following an extensive program of visits & discussions with clinicians & other stakeholders.
Outcome: The Brief was accepted by the government & design work began in 2001. The scheme was almost ready to go to tender when the government instituted a wide scale Review of Paediatric Services & commissioned McKinsey to prepare a report on the strategic organisation of tertiary paediatric services. That report was completed early in 2006 & has since been accepted. It recommends that a single paediatric hospital coterminous with an adult teaching hospital should be constructed. The government has accepted this & proposes that the new National Paediatric Hospital will be coterminous with the Mater. As a result the original planned children’s component has been aborted. The Mater component is about to go to tender and a Brief for the new National Paediatric Hospital is close to completion.