Derry medical school expansion 'needs more money'

Additional funding is needed if the expansion of the medical school in Londonderry is to meet Northern Ireland’s future demand for doctors, Ulster University (UU) has said.

The medical school opened in 2021 and has an annual intake of 70 medical students.

Its expansion is one of the signature projects of Derry’s city deal.

On Monday, UU vice-chancellor Prof Paul Bartholomew said to fully maximise that expansion, more government money is required.

“We do feel there is an extra capital ask to be made of government and that is the right thing to do at this stage,” he told a special meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council.

Under the city deal plans, a new state of the art building is proposed for the school on a site on the Foyle’s riverfront.

Councillors were told there are currently four options for the relocation, with the most ambitious seeing a move to a new 10,000 sq m building.

A less expansive and expensive option can now progress with funding from existing monies, Prof Bartholomew told the council.

However, the more ambitious option would include research space, and capacity for an increase in medical student numbers – the only option to do so.

He said, that maximum expansion option was “the right one for Northern Ireland”.

“We think it is pretty obvious that Northern Ireland is going to need more doctors, and there is a route to do it through here,” Prof Bartholomew said.

He added: “It would seem to be a missed opportunity to be building a building on our campus and then to under build it”.

UU has spent much of the last year lobbying government for additional funding, councillors were told.

Prof Bartholomew said as part of that process UU has also indicated it would also “put in additional monies”.

Councillors were told that the initial scale of the project has had to be reassessed because of rising costs and inflation in recent years.

He assured councillors that the university “will as a minimum” deliver the “affordable option”.

The city deal plans also include expansion of both the current medical teaching facility at Altnagelvin Hospital and the personalised medicine centre, C-TRIC, also based on the hospital site.