Agenda item

The minutes of the meeting held on 2 October 2023 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair subject to the following amendments:

Ms A Stobbart be included in the attendance and apologies from Councillor J Howey be recorded.

Councillor Earley referred to Minute No. 7, Shotley Bridge Hospital Update and stated that in his recollection the Project Manager had begun his presentation with the phrase that ‘he was surprised and did not know how Shotley Bridge Hospital Project ended up within the new Hospital Programme’ and made reference to the Audit Commission’s recent report and he could not see reference to this in the minutes.

He then referred to the minutes where ‘they were confident that the project would go forward in Cohort 2 and the scheme was safe going forward and the figures included inflation’, he indicated that the inflation costs attached to the current build proposal were high and asked for a follow up on this as he wanted to ask if the budget and Shotley Bridge hospital programme should be taken out of the new hospital programme as it was not working.

In response, the Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer suggested that an additional recommendation be included in the Shotley Bridge Hospital Update to ask for regular updates on the Shotley Bridge Hospital project.

He reminded Members that immediately before the start of the last meeting notification was received from a Member of the Public raising a couple of questions in respect of the Shotley Bridge Hospital Project. These questions were forwarded to representatives at the meeting and a response from the NHS Foundation Trust had been received and was circulated to Members of the Committee and are to be appended to the minutes.

Members agreed to the inclusion of an additional recommendation that regular update reports be submitted to the Committee on Shotley Bridge Hospital.