{"id":271555,"date":"2026-01-30T07:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/271555\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:46:07","slug":"hse-bid-for-bloomfield-hospital-significantly-higher-than-market-value-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/271555\/","title":{"rendered":"HSE bid for Bloomfield Hospital \u2018significantly\u2019 higher than market value \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Health Service Executive (HSE<\/a>) approved an increased bid to acquire Bloomfield mental health<\/a> hospital<\/a> despite it being \u201csignificantly\u201d higher than market value.<\/p>\n

The south Dublin<\/a> hospital, a registered charity, was set up by the Quakers in Ireland more than 200 years ago to provide care to people with enduring mental health difficulties and neuropsychiatric disorders, including Huntington\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s and schizophrenia. <\/p>\n

It is primarily funded by the HSE and recorded a net surplus of just over \u20ac2.1 million in 2024, according to its most recent financial accounts.<\/p>\n

Late last year, the charity informed patients and families of its intention to sell the Rathfarnham facility<\/a> due to the ageing profile of the board and the \u201cshrinking size\u201d of the religious community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this in mind and after very careful consideration, the board has decided that the time has come to hand over Bloomfield to a new board of directors who will be responsible for the governance of Bloomfield,\u201d chief executive Joe Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly said the board has entered into positive negotiations with an unnamed exclusive party. He added that they would probably be in a position to provide further information in February. <\/p>\n

He said day-to-day activities and operations at the hospital will \u201ccontinue as is\u201d and there will be \u201cno change to the care we provide for our residents\u201d.<\/p>\n

In November, the HSE board approved a decision to make a premium bid to acquire the hospital. It said the cost for the HSE to replace its 131 beds would be \u201cmuch greater\u201d than the proposed bid and it would take \u201ca number of years\u201d to deliver these replacement beds if the acquisition did not proceed.<\/p>\n

The details of the proposed acquisition were revealed in minutes of a special meeting of the board\u2019s audit and risk committee on November 27th. Following questions from The Irish Times, the minutes were removed from the HSE website.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Inside Bloomfield Hospital: what investigators found after whistle blown on patient careOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The cost of the HSE bid and market value were not available due to commercial sensitivity.<\/p>\n

During the discussion, the committee emphasised how the disruption to patient care and the risks involved in not securing the existing beds outweighed the price of the increased bid.<\/p>\n

Later in the meeting, the committee agreed to learn from this process through a number of measures, including strengthening service-level agreements with providers.<\/p>\n

It also recommended considering the inclusion of compulsory purchase orders in future agreements to strengthen the executive\u2019s legal position in negotiations.<\/p>\n

The committee agreed that Brian O\u2019Connell, the HSE\u2019s national director of strategic health infrastructure and capital delivery, would discuss these topics with the Department of Health.<\/p>\n

The HSE did not respond to a question on whether it was successful in acquiring the property with this higher bid.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Huntington\u2019s charity \u2018worried and saddened\u2019 by mistreatment findings at BloomfieldOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governing body of Bloomfield have indicated their intention to withdraw from service provision,\u201d a spokeswoman said. \u201cThe HSE\u2019s priority at all times is the ongoing care of residents, and their safety, dignity and wellbeing. Matters pertaining to any acquisition of the property are confidential to any parties involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the hospital\u2019s management team said it had no further comment at this time.<\/p>\n

Bloomfield hospital faced political and regulatory pressure at the end of last year after The Irish Times revealed<\/a> the findings of an independent investigation that found patients were left soiled for an \u201cunacceptable period\u201d, a patient was \u201cslapped\u201d on the leg by a healthcare worker, and one was threatened with an injection to improve compliance.<\/p>\n

Bloomfield\u2019s senior management commenced an internal and external investigation, saying it took any reports of misconduct \u201cvery seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Health Service Executive (HSE) approved an increased bid to acquire Bloomfield mental health hospital despite it being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3414,103,397,1418,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-271555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-department-of-health","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-service-executive-hse","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}