Agenda item

The minutes of the meeting held on 9 November 2020 were confirmed as a correct record and would be signed by the Chair.

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer advised Members that there had been some recent media announcements around the funding of the Shotley Bridge Community Hospital. Sarah Burns, Head of Integrated Commissioning, County Durham Integrated Community Care Partnership was in attendance to provide members with an update on the funding.

Sarah Burns advised Members that this had been a long running project that had huge involvement from local members, the community, Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and local NHS Provider Trusts. The original proposals around the replacement for Shotley Bridge Hospital were developed in 2016. At that point they had £17.1 million in funding allocated to the project. Since 2016 the work on the hospital and the services that would be based at the hospital had being refreshed due to a period of engagement with the public and local clinicians.

The original model that was developed did not include inpatient beds and the proposals now included 16 inpatient beds which increased the costs of the project. There were a number of services that were planned to be in the facility that included inpatient beds, urgent treatment centre, chemotherapy and medical investigations unit, therapy provision, outpatient services, women and children services and a multi-use space for primary and community care services and hopefully non-medical services for use by people in the community.

Government had confirmed that the Shotley Bridge Hospital was going to be part of the Health Infrastructure Plan Programme (HIP), more information on this could be obtained on the department of health and social care site. Part of this programme there was a requirement for the building to be carbon neutral which increased the costs, it was an upfront investment that would benefit in future years the people that use the services and the provider that worked there in terms of having an energy efficient building.

Since 2016 engineering costs had increased and the cost of land and general inflation had contributed to the increased costs of the project. They were confident that the funding was secured, it was good to be part of the HIP project as they knew that funding was secured for the building and for the project to go ahead. They knew from their engagement work that they had the right services for the community, but this would be tested again at the end of February with a further period of engagement. They did not expect that this project would detract from any of the other services in County Durham, so this investment was not going to take away funding from other NHS services in other parts of the county.

The capital funding for the build was part of a separate allocation for the NHS and their core allocation for the delivery of services remained as it had been and were committed to the delivery of services from other community hospitals sites. They had seen how important these sites had been throughout the COVID outbreak to support continuity of care and significant work had been carried out to improve the services over the number of years and this would continue.

The Chair indicated that he had received representations from members who were not on the committee from the Consett and Shotley Bridge area. There had been some concern about the future of Chester-Le-Street Community Hospital and other areas and the University Hospital of North Durham for the extra £10 million funding. They were concerned that this was a 50% increase in the funding and how the original costings were so wrong. He then asked why this was not brought to the Scrutiny meeting earlier and why were they not advised of the HIP Programme and this potential issue before it was announced in the media that it was going to cost £30 million and not the original £20 million.

Councillor Temple indicated that he was pleased with what was happening at Shotley Bridge Hospital, he hugely valued the facility in his community but would not want it to detract from any other areas of the county. He thought if they did not have the 16 inpatient beds and a facility that was fit for the 21^st century it would have been a huge disappointment. From the point of view of his local community there was unalloyed satisfaction at what they were likely to have now.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning responded that in terms of costs these were their best estimate at the time and a number of things had changed, such as the model and the number of services in the hospital. The infrastructure of the building had changed that came with significant cost, the model had been influenced with engagement with the public and demonstrated that engagement worked. They were unsure if inpatient beds needed to be part of the model but there was a resounding yes from the public and clinicians that this was necessary and had influenced their decisions. They had new engineering requirements, increased land costs, inflation, and the requirements around the energy efficient model, all these things combined lead to the increase in the costs of the programme. She assured the committee that the capital funding stream for this building was completely separate from the NHS allocation to run services and they would not expect this to have any impact on any of the health services across the county.

The Chair commented that the 16 inpatient beds was consistent with other community hospitals and was wonderful that Shotley Bridge Hospital was going to be revitalised.

Gosia Ciesielska asked if they had procedures that would require them to resubmit the budget if was a certain percentage greater than the original budget.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning responded that the capital costs of the initiative were overseen by NHS England Improvement who would look at the project initiation document they had developed and business case for services and they would be assuring that they were in line with what they would expect for a development of this kind. In terms of the services that are delivered locally it was important for this committee to feel fully assured that they had engaged with the public and clinicians and they had fully understood the services that were required for the community in Shotley Bridge. She hoped that the ongoing work that had been done with the committee and the members and officers working group that they had kept all fully involved and engaged at all points so everybody understood the rationale for the inclusion of services that they were including in the project.

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer assured members that in terms of the latest development with Shotley Bridge Hospital there was further public engagement activity that was due to commence shortly. An item was also scheduled to come to the next meeting on the results and feedback from that engagement activity.