Recreating the old county boundary is a step backwards
April 7, 2006 9:56 AM
David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, has described the Strategic Health Authority's proposal to amalgamate health-care in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough as a "step backwards".
Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority has recommended that there should be a single Primary Care Trust for Cambridgeshire and Peteborough.
Mr. Howarth commented on the recommendation:
"Health and social care should be democratically administered together in order to provide the most integrated service to patients.
"Recreating the old county boundaries by tying health-care in Cambridgeshire with Peterborough is a step backwards. Social care will still be administered separately in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and so we will lose any integration between the two services.
"Finally we need democratic accountability in our health service. Too often major decisions are being taken by unelected quangos and patients have no voice. Any restructuring of Primary Care Trusts must involve making them democratically accountable, not just moving them further away."
The SHA's recommendation is part of a Department of Health consultation designed to restructure Primary Care Trusts.
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