Campaigners say the minutes of a controversial council meeting fail to shed any light on why councillors backtracked on key decisions.

And they are now calling for the details of behind closed doors discussions between councillors and health chiefs to be made public.

The Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee met on March 22 to decide whether or not to refer hugely unpopular NHS decisions about the future of maternity, paediatrics and community hospitals to the Secretary of State.

Initially the majority of the 11 councillors on the committee voted in favour of “calling in” all three.

But the meeting later descended into chaos after four members left before the end and those who remained changed their minds in the final vote.

As a result, only maternity was referred, with councillors accepting the controversial plans to downgrade children’s services at the West Cumberland Hospital and close cottage hospital beds in Wigton, Maryport and Alston.

Campaigners say they are baffled how, after expressing serious concerns about both matters, councillors could make such a dramatic U turn.

They had hoped the minutes would provide an explanation, but remain confused.

The draft minutes, published by Cumbria County Council, do not include details of mitigation talks - held in private during an adjournment of the March 22 meeting - between senior scrutiny members and NHS bosses.

These discussions must be held to see if a compromise can first be reached before any matters are referred to the Secretary of State.

Ahead of the talks, held late in the day, scrutiny members had set out detailed reasons for calling in each matter and voted strongly in favour.

For children’s services, concerns included safety fears and failures in the travel impact assessment and emergency transfer arrangements.

When the meeting resumed after the adjournment, NHS chiefs promised to carry out a safety audit as the new arrangements bedded in.

The subsequent vote, taken after members - including vice chairman Raymond Gill, who seconded the original call-in proposal - had left, was 5-2 against referral.

Annette Robson, of the We Need West Cumberland Hospital campaign group, believes the first vote, taken with all members present, should stand.

“It was clear from evidence provided at the meeting that maternity and paediatrics should be referred to the Secretary of State.

"The two are intrinsically linked so referring only maternity was a poor decision,” she said.

On community hospital bed closures, there was originally a list of eight reasons for referral - including lack of alternative nursing provision, concern about end of life care, impact on rural areas, lack of independent review, funding uncertainties and concerns about the impact on bed-blocking in the main hospitals.

NHS leaders promised to work with local communities to draw up alternative care models and said no beds would close until these were in place.

They also urged members not to delay the co-production work already underway in these areas by calling in the decision, saying there was a “very real possibility enthusiastic people would be lost”.

Members then voted 4-3 against referral.

Alice Bondi, an Alston campaigner, said: “In what is recorded here, almost nothing seems to have been addressed, and in place of any reasoned argument there is a groundless allegation that the delay in closure caused by referral might mean losing enthusiastic people from the discussions,” she said.

“On the contrary, being told that proper hospital beds – what they term ‘medical beds’ – are completely out of the picture is going to lead to a considerable loss of enthusiasm.

"There appears to be no clear response to the eight reasons for referral.”