TSA Management, MBMO Architecture and Donald Cant Watts Corke recently got the nod from NSW Health Infrastructure to begin the planning process and the visit to Taree on Tuesday was to meet with various clinical groups.

According to Karen Kelly, executive director greater metropolitan health services for Hunter New England Local Health District, "the lead design team met with various clinical groups at the hospital to gain an understanding about how the new space will function and operate."

"The clinicians are the people who need to work in the new space so receiving their advice on how services will function best in the redevelopment is important," Ms Kelly explained. "Information gathered from consultations will form part of the functional design brief which is a component of the business case."

The visit of the design team to Taree was also heralded a major step forward in the redevelopment of Manning Hospital, by member for Myall Lakes Stephen Bromhead.

He explained that the design team would "consider all future redevelopment requirements of the Manning Hospital campus and detailed planning and design will be completed on the stage one works.

"The visit of the design team shows the NSW government is on-track with vital preliminary work and flies in the face of those few people who claim the government will not redevelop the hospital.

"Anyone who knows about construction work and finance understands the methodical steps needed to ensure the building process runs smoothly.

"What is needed throughout the redevelopment of Manning Hospital is a cool-headed and experienced team of experts, not those seeking to make mileage and political point scoring for their own personal reasons."

The visit to Manning Hospital follows the first meeting of the Manning Valley Health Advocacy Group on September 3. Mr Bromhead attended the first meeting and heard the concerns of members regarding the amount of funding allocated to the redevelopment and the process of progressing the proposed works.

"This kind of communication and progress is exactly what the group is seeking and we look forward to seeing the outcomes from the design team," Manning Valley Health Advocacy Group chairman Jeremy Thornton said.

"Our community advocacy group is a non-political committee and have the interests of the community first and foremost in mind.

"Mr Bromhead has stated that this work will consider all future redevelopment requirements of the Manning Hospital campus and detailed planning and design will be completed on the stage one works.

"This is a step we questioned Mr Bromhead over during our first committee meeting and it is pleasing to see not only stage one, but the full redevelopment is being looked at as this will alleviate the concerns raised over ease of access and flows throughout the campus.

"The Manning Valley Health Advocacy Group delivered a formal letter on behalf of the community to Mr Bromhead which he has committed to communicating with Michael DiRienzo of Hunter New England Health and health minister Jillian Skinner.

"Our intention is to walk alongside Mr Bromhead in delivering the health upgrades our region so desperately needs and we look forward to the reply in due course."

This story first appeared in the Manning River Times.