Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) established under the Children’s Health Act 2018 (SI 27 of 2018) is an academic healthcare organisation that is leading on the clinical and operational transformation of acute paediatric healthcare. The three children’s hospitals at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght and the Children’s Hospital Group (based at Herberton) transitioned from four separate, independently governed entities into one new single organisation effective on 1st January 2019 to govern and operate acute paediatric services in Dublin and all national paediatric services, some of which are on an all-island basis.
CHI operates as a single service across the existing children’s hospital locations of Crumlin, Temple Street, and Tallaght. CHI at Connolly the first of two paediatric outpatient and urgent care centres opened on 31 July 2019, on the grounds of Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, this will be followed by the opening of a second facility at Tallaght Hospital which is currently planned to open in 2020 and the opening of the new children’s hospital on the campus shared with St James’s Hospital in 2023 all of which will support transforming how healthcare is delivered to children in Ireland.
Annually over 350,000 children and young people access CHI services for in-patient, day care, out-patient or Emergency / Urgent Care treatment and care provided by a workforce of over 3,600 staff, with an annual expenditure of circa €350m, across 4 locations in Dublin and as part of a networked approach to acute paediatric healthcare services on the island of Ireland.
CHI’s Children’s Hospital Programme is a major programme that is focused on transformative service change to enhance services for children and young people, to integrate the three existing hospitals, while maintaining existing and new services, ensuring patient safety and quality until the physical transition to the new children’s hospital is complete.
This Programme will:
- Operationalise an integrated an acute paediatric healthcare network;
- Act as client for the government funded capital project to build the new children’s hospital and the two paediatric outpatient and urgent care centres at Connolly and Tallaght Hospitals, and a separately funded Children’s Research and Innovation Centre;
- Operationally commission these new facilities to open services and
- Implement a major ICT programme to digitise acute paediatric healthcare.
2.0 CHI Functions
The functions of Children’s Health Ireland are:
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- to plan, conduct, maintain, manage, provide and develop paediatric services in the hospital;
- to provide for patient safety and quality of patient care in the hospital;
- to promote excellence in the practice and provision of paediatric services and provide leadership in the advancement, development, organisation and delivery of paediatric services in an integrated clinical network for paediatric services;
- to facilitate, foster and promote, through educational and other programmes, the personal and professional development of its employees and to provide paediatric medical, nursing and health and social care professional training and education;
- to facilitate, foster, promote and carry out research and innovation aimed at improving paediatric services and advancing medical and scientific knowledge relating to paediatric services through research and scientific investigation and inquiry;
- to provide information, advice, advocacy, and assistance in relation to paediatric services to the Minister for Health, the Executive, the Health Information and Quality Authority, and such other persons as have involvement in the provision of paediatric services, as may be necessary;
- to advocate on behalf of children and young people about healthcare issues;
- to engage in or support fundraising and philanthropy in relation to Children’s Health Ireland and the provision of paediatric services in the hospital in pursuit of the Object of Children’s Health Ireland;
- to carry out such other functions as are necessary to provide paediatric services in the hospital.
