Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown and Tallaght Hospital have been chosen as satellite centres which will act as back-up to the new national children's hospital at St James's for the provision of minor emergency and less specialised care.

Both centres, one on the northside and one on the southside of Dublin, will be launched before the main children's hospital opens its doors to patients around 2018-19.

The two satellite centres will provide emergency/urgent care facilities for children in the greater Dublin area and will also provide less specialised secondary acute outpatient services, including rapid access general paediatric clinics.

According to the Department of Health, the satellite centres will improve geographic access to urgent care for a significant number of children in the greater Dublin area. They will also supports primary and community care paediatrics and will significantly reduce emergency department and outpatient attendance on the main site, the Department said.

Each centre will provide consultant-delivered urgent care, with observation beds and appropriate diagnostic test facilities.

The Department said it was anticipated that the centres would open from 7.30am to 10pm.  

It is planned that the majority of patients attending the centres will be treated and discharged on site.

Critically-ill and injured children will be stabilised by appropriately trained staff and transferred to the main St James's site, using a retrieval and transport service. 

The centres are expected to provide 41% of urgent acute care in the greater Dublin area, equivalent to 50,000 attendances annually.

Both Connolly and Tallaght Hositals were unsuccessful bidders in the most recent process that chose St James's as the site for the main children's hospital, following the previous planning rejection of the Mater as the national children's hospital location in early 2012.

A decision on planning permission for the children's hospital at St James's is unlikely to be made until the middle of 2015.

Some doubts are being expressed about the suitability of St James's as as the site for the main children's hospital.

The doubts relate to access to its city centre location, the size of the site and potential planning difficulties - all quite similar to the doubts previously expressed about the Mater site. In addition, there are concerns about how long the process of building the St James's facility will actually take.

Last week, a group led by hospital developer and orthopaedic surgeon James Sheehan said it could build the new national children's hospital on a site in Blanchardstown near the M50, as an alternative to the current St James's plan. It predicted it could open the Blanchardstown facility in January 2017.