John Sisk & Son has signed a deal to design and build seven Community Nursing Units (CNUs), at locations throughout Ireland.

The facilities will be delivered under the Irish government’s Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) compliance programme through a public-private partnership, the CNU PPP. Equitix Investment Management is providing private sector funding for the project.

Sisk’s facilities management subsidiary, Sensori FM, will manage the new units once they are operational.

The project will deliver the residential care facilities comprising of both short and long stay beds for older patients at facilities across the country.

The €250m (£215m) 104-week programme is scheduled to deliver 530 nursing-home beds to Ireland’s Health Service Executive by the end of 2024 at locations in Ardee, Athlone, Clonmel, Thomastown, Killarney, Midleton and Cork.

The CNUs will mainly comprise two-storey buildings with the exception of St Finbarr’s, in Cork, which will have a two and three-story superstructure due to the nature of the site.

Each CNU is made up of a number of 25-bed households including single and twin bedrooms en-suite. Each household includes a dayroom and sunroom, dining area, break-out spaces, activity spaces, quiet rooms, external spaces and staff and nursing areas.

Shared areas and therapy spaces are included with facilities including a family overnight stay room, clinical treatment rooms, physiotherapy and occupational therapy rooms and hairdressers’ rooms.

Special facilities for dementia patients will be included in Killarney (three 10- bed households), St Finbarr’s (three 10-bed households) and Thomastown (two 10-bed households) as well as a day centre in Athlone.

All units will be located on existing health service grounds, in close proximity to existing healthcare premises, and are replacements for existing outdated facilities.

Work on the Ardee, Clonmel, Killarney, Cork and Thomastown CNUs is scheduled to begin before Christmas 2022 and the remaining two (Athlone and Midleton) by early 2023. All are expected to have construction completed by the end of 2024.

Sisk’s managing director of regional building, Marcus Carne, said:

“We are delighted to be part of this really important healthcare project across the country and are committed to delivering these vital community nursing units to the highest standard possible and as efficiently as we can.

“Sisk has a really strong relationship with our supply chain partners across the country and will be using the latest technology to deliver these much-needed units.”