Capital Development Plan
Our infrastructure development plan over the next five years forms a key element of our Strategy. It will build on the strong foundations that presently exist within our clinical service models and will help to signpost our direction for the future.
Underpinned by the National strategy for healthcare reform, we are evolving our plans to enable us to meet current and future challenges associated with the reform agenda.
The impact of the Covid pandemic on clinical services has resulted in the need to speed up service transformation to achieve fully integrated care. redesign, financial resourcing and resources to support implementation of the Sláintecare Reforms for Healthcare, working with HSE partners in the acute and community sectors to transform service provision in the Mid-West.
Our focus lies on proactively responding to healthcare needs by ensuring we have the capacity to safely deliver services in the Covid pandemic era, to reduce public waiting lists and speed up where we can on the further development of integrated care pathways between our hospital and the community. Our plans emphasise the connections between the high quality services we provide while working with our HSE partners to achieve better outcomes, more effectively.
We propose to undertake a programme of building and clinical service developments that will greatly assist in speeding up and enhancing the delivery of care through additional necessary bed resources in UL Hospitals Group which will also help to alleviate the bed pressures on UHL site. With an emphasis on transformational change at local level, each element of our plan facilitates the upscaling of services to enhance overall service provision in Limerick and the Mid-west. Our plan has a particular focus on scheduled care, clinical support and recovery services and management of patients with chronic illness who require a step-up from community level care.
Working with our local healthcare partners, we aim to support reductions in financial costs across the whole system, emphasising the connections between high quality service provision and working with others to achieve better outcomes in the most efficient way.
The most important of these projects is the 150 bed block – based on the 2016 Feasibility Study undertaken by Cullen Payne Architects.
This proposal makes excellent use of the space available for development on St John’s site. Not only does the investment represent a quantum leap in the quality of the physical and clinical environment for patients and staff but it also frees up a large volume of unsuitable clinical space in the existing buildings that is more conducive to other uses such as theatre and endoscopy unit expansion.
There are important levers required to support the progress of each aspect of these developments: the biggest challenge being capital investment. The Condition Survey of our hospital commissioned by the HSE in 2018 and subsequently updated in 2018 and 2022, shows a clear and cogent case for serious capital investment in St John’s Hospital. This Five Facet Survey Report on the existing buildings outlines clearly their physical and functional deficiencies which strengthens the case for a new bed block.
