Minister for Health announces milestone in the development of the new National Maternity Hospital

Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly has announced today another important milestone in the development and relocation of the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) to Elm Park, Dublin. The Health Service Executive (HSE) has today issued the tender package for the main works contractor for the development.

Following Government approval to proceed to tender in July 2023, the first step of the tender process began in September 2023. Today marks the second step of the process whereby prequalified tendering contractors will prepare and submit their tender offers for the construction of the new hospital.

Speaking today, Minister Donnelly said:

"I welcome this major step in the relocation of the new National Maternity Hospital. This hospital will be the greatest infrastructural investment by the State in the area of women's health to-date, providing state of the art facilities for women, girls, and babies for generations to come.

"The relocation of the NMH will support the delivery of the National Maternity Strategy as we move towards the co-location of maternity and adult services, in line with international best practice, and to ensure the health and welfare of mothers and their babies, and better women's health services."

The Master of The National Maternity Hospital, Professor Shane Higgins said:

"The National Maternity Hospital welcomes this significant milestone and looks forward to working with all relevant parties to progress this crucial development."

The relocated NMH will be a new seven-storey building, over 50,000m2, to be constructed at the eastern side of the existing St Vincent's University Hospital.

Enabling works to accommodate the main construction works are underway at Elm Park and will continue in parallel to the tender for the main development works. This will allow the new NMH to be constructed as a single-phase development.

The HSE has had significant engagement with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that contractual arrangements for the new NMH project will protect the State's interests and that key learnings from the New Children's Hospital (NCH) have been appropriately captured and addressed.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

Procurement approach

In July 2023 Cabinet gave its approval for the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) at Elm Park, co-located with St Vincent's University Hospital, to proceed to tender for a main contractor to construct the new hospital in line with EU and national requirements.

The tender process, which began in September 2023, was programmed to run over a period of circa 18 months, including:

• Contractor pre-qualification.
• Tender issue to the pre-qualified contractors, and receipt of tender responses (beginning today).
• Evaluation of returned tenders in line with the award criteria.
• Updating of the final business case to incorporate market responses.
• Government consent to proceed to sign contracts.

The procurement strategy for the new NMH is a restricted procurement procedure utilising an amended version of the PW-CF1 contract (Building Works Designed by the Employer) under the Office of Government Procurement's Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF).

The CWMF is a structure that has been developed to deliver the Government's objectives in relation to public sector construction procurement reform. It is an integrated set of contractual provisions, guidance material and technical procedures which covers all aspects of the delivery process of a public works project from inception to final project delivery and review.

• This procedure was selected because it is important given the scale and complexity of the project, that only contractors that have demonstrated that they have the relevant experience, technical and financial capacity are invited to tender for the works.
• The first step of the tender process involved the publication of Suitability Assessment Questionnaires on the e-tenders and the Official Journal of the European Union platforms in September 2023, where interested parties were invited to submit evidence of their suitability for evaluation.
• From this evaluation a short list of qualifying contractors was created, who are today being invited to tender for the works.

Pre-qualified contractors will have five months to prepare their submissions to deliver the works.

Following the submission of tenders, all will be subject to thorough evaluation to determine the most economically advantageous tenders.

A final business case will be updated on the back of market responses to ensure that the project continues to represent value for money. This will then be brought to Government for consent to sign contracts with the successful tenderers.

It is expected that this process will be completed by mid-2025 in parallel with the completion of the enabling works on site.

Enabling Works at Elm Park

In parallel to the tender and procurement process, in order to construct the proposed NMH development as a single-phase development, a number of new buildings are required to be completed on the St Vincent's campus to allow the decanting of existing services in advance of the commencement of the main NMH works.

Enabling works include the construction of new electrical energy and mechanical energy centres (heating and hot water), as well as construction of buildings which will accommodate the Medical Records Department, kitchen facilities, a canteen, and a Neurology Inpatient Ward.

These enabling works commenced in December 2023 and are due for completion in mid-2025.

National Maternity Strategy

The National Maternity Strategy sets out a vision for future maternity services, where women are treated with dignity and respect in an appropriate physical environment. In that regard, it is also recognised that the NMH cannot be upgraded to achieve that vision in meeting current healthcare standards, while maintaining its current level of service delivery at the Holles Street site.

It is well recognised that even though there is an excellent service provided at Holles Street, the buildings are no longer fit for purpose.

Co-location of maternity and adult services will deliver the safest maternity care for women, and the best outcomes, and this approach is in keeping with best practice internationally. It is intended that, over time, all our stand-alone maternity hospitals will be co-located with an adult hospital. The NMH is the priority because its current infrastructure is inadequate.

The new NMH will provide:

• 244 beds, an increase of 80 beds on Holles Street, all to be single occupancy rooms.
• Five operating theatres (increase from the three functioning theatres at Holles Street).
• Direct access from the NMH theatres & High Dependency Unit (HDU) to the existing Saint Vincent's University Hospital (SVUH) theatres & Intensive Care Units (ICU).
• Total gross floor area of the main development is approximately 50,000m2.

Recognising changes in delivery of maternity, neonatal and women's health services over coming years, flexibility has been built into design and clinical operations of new NMH:

• Offering increasing patient privacy and dignity
• Increased demand for colposcopy services
• Ambulatory Gynaecology Clinics
• Space for the regional fertility hub
• Assisted Reproduction Therapy (ART) Laboratory
• Complex Menopause Clinic
• Pain Clinic
• Perinatal Genetics service
• Termination of Pregnancy service
• Inclusion of embedded 'soft spots' to allow for future expansion of key clinical areas

In terms of training and education for health care professionals, there will be seminar rooms on every floor, a lecture theatre, library, and clinical skills laboratory.