Agenda item

Members will be given the opportunity to;

a) Approve the notes as an accurate record.

b) Discuss how they felt the briefing wentand,

c) Agree next steps (if any)

The Head of Corporate Development summarised the current position of the notes of the briefing hosted by the Council - two Council officers were accountable for taking the notes. The combined content of these notes were used to form the official record which was approved by the chair of scrutiny and subsequently published without change. ESHT had stated that they disagreed with the notes and had produced their own version based on a taped recording they undertook at the meeting. They also maintained that EBC had failed in the previously agreed intent to produce a jointly agreed set of notes. The Head of Corporate Development responded to these points as follows:

1) The intent was always that the Council, as hosts, would administer the meeting and then would offer ESHT the opportunity to comment and/or suggest specific amendments. This had been done and ESHT were entitled to simply disagree, which would not invalidate the notes produced by the Council as being the official record.

2) At no point had ESHT sought to make anyone aware that they were recording the meeting or, as basic courtesy, sought the agreement of the Chairman. Had they done so, it would almost certainly have been agreed and could have been given to EBC officers to assist in preparing the record.  At this point, ESHT had not offered to make the full recording available to the Council and had not produced a full transcript of any recording.

Members agreed the record taken by Council officers without amendment.  The notes had been shared with both Leaders and the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Scrutiny committee.  This had given limited time for ESHT to comment.  Therefore the committee agreed to approve the notes subject to giving ESHT a further week to make any specific comments, the inclusion of which would be subject to liaison with the Chair and Deputy Chair and both Leaders.  ESHT would be invited to comment and/or suggest amendments by no later than 16^th December 2013. This was consistent with the process previously agreed.

The committee thanked Katie Armstrong and Simon Russell for their efforts in recording the meeting.

Members considered the various options available.  The committee were in agreement that the current arrangement for maternity services to be based in Hastings, and the ESHT’s statement that services would not be provided at both sites had somewhat predetermined their decision that services should be provided in Hastings alone. 

The committee were keen to gather evidence to support the Council’s opinion that maternity services should return to Eastbourne given that in the region of 250,000 people would be affected by the final decision.  The committee were keen to have full input into the CCG consultation process due to start in early 2014 and agreed that further discussion with the Save the DGH campaign group and Liz Walke would be required to determine the way forward.  The committee also agreed that it would be important to ensure that the County Council’s Health and Overview and Scrutiny Committee be advised of the Council’s intentions.

NOTED.