12:00am Tuesday 18th September 2001
Harpenden MP Peter Lilley has slammed government plans for a major restructuring of the NHS, accusing them of "focusing on creating larger bureaucratic units, rather than patients' needs."
Mr Lilley was responding to the Government's shake up of the health service, which will see 95 local health authorities abolished and replaced with 30 Strategic Health Authorities (StHAs).
Mr Lilley said: "This seems to be part of the Government's remorseless centralisation of the health service into larger units. The focus should be on the patient."
The health authority responsibilities will fall into the hands of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) which will receive the lion's share of funding.
The PCTs will have power to buy hospital services for patients.
These will include areas such as specialist care, and the PCTs will also work with other organisations, like councils, to meet all local health needs.
Hospital trusts will be restructured to provide high quality patient centred services, giving more responsibility to clinical teams and "modern matrons".
Existing Department of Health regional offices will be abolished and its main responsibilities consigned to the StHAs.
The Government is now seeking residents' views on which areas the new StHAs should cover, and gives four options for Hertfordshire:
Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire (serving 1.62 million people)
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire (serving 2.37 people)
Hertfordshire alone (serving 1.5 million people)
Hertfordshire and Luton (serving 1.3 million people).
St Albans MP Kerry Pollard welcomed the move.
He said: "This is long overdue. PCTs are local people making local decisions about local health care.
"The StHAs will also be better economically - taking a more administrative role which means they can cope with larger areas.
"The bigger the authority and larger area covered, the better the economy of scale.
"If we have one director and one chief executive covering Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire instead of two, we are saving money that can be ploughed into frontline services like doctors, nurses and therapists."
However, Ms Zena Bullmore from the Dacorum Hospital Action Group wants Hertfordshire to stand alone.
She said: "I do not like over-large organisations because they cannot keep in touch with the needs of local people at grass root level.
"St Albans and Harpenden PCT covers a large enough region.
"If they keep them to the size they are now, the new organisation will work.
"But if they start linking PCTs up with other areas they might not be quite so successful."
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