A SERIOUS accident which injured two workmen and forced health bosses to postpone the opening of a new hospital was not the first, it emerged last night.

Plans to open the new £67m Bishop Auckland General Hospital ahead of schedule were derailed after two electricians received severe shocks in February.

As a result of that incident, it was decided that modifications to electrical and mechanical services in the new privately-funded hospital should be carried out.

Bosses expect to move into the new County Durham hospital by July 28 - three months later than scheduled.

It has now emerged that another electrical problem occurred last year.

The earlier incident was disclosed during a meeting of the South Durham Health Care NHS Trust's joint consultative committee.

At the meeting, Ted Robertson, branch secretary for the Unison health union, expressed concern that the recent electrical problem was "similar to one which had taken place five or six months ago and had not been investigated fully at that time".

Yesterday, Mr Robertson repeated his concerns that the lessons of the earlier incident seemed not to have been learned.

"The point that I was trying to get over is that if the system failed the first time around, why wasn't a risk assessment carried out at that stage? Then we wouldn't have had the delay in opening the new hospital," he said.

John Saxby, chief executive of the South Durham trust, stressed that the NHS would not take delivery of the new building until it was passed by independent certifiers.

Keith Abel, general manager of Criterion, the trust's main Private Finance Initiative partner, said: "We can only believe that the earlier electrical incident being suggested was one that occurred in the summer of 2001 where a joint in a water pipe was damaged.

"From this, water entered the main electrical network causing it to trip out, which it is designed to do. No one was in any danger, no lasting damage was suffered - and there was no connection between the two incidents".

"Work is about to begin on additional measures and we are confident that the hospital will be fully occupied at least by the original completion date of July 28 and hopefully earlier, " said Mr Abel.

Both electricians had made full recoveries, he said.