D-day looms for future of health service (From Tewkesbury Admag)

D-day looms for future of health service

HEALTH Secretary Patricia Hewitt is due to announce her decision on the future of health services in Gloucestershire in the next few days.

She is expected to rubber stamp the merger of Cotswold and Vale PCT with the Tewkesbury and Forest of Dean PCTs to form one single trust for the region, and set in motion the transformation of patient services to concentrate on a stronger care in the community emphasis.

The proposals for the county's health were subject to a massive three-month consultation between December and March, and the strategic health authority will be announcing the final decision, and how it will be implemented, after Mrs Hewitt has given her ruling. A board meeting of the Cotswold and Vale PCT, which has been in place only three years, is scheduled for May 9.

The priority of the new trust will be to keep services but change the service model, with more care taking place in the community. It is expected that local health centres and GP surgeries will take the pressure off acute services. GPs will offer specialisms such as ophthalmology, dermatology, and minor surgery. New digital X-ray equipment should free up hospital departments.

Jim Parsons, vice-chairman of the Patients Forum for the Cotswolds Patients Forum, said: "The PCT will disappear and we will disappear too, to become one PCT and one forum for the whole of Gloucestershire. We agreed with the view of the PCT and that of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. If the government says that's what it wants then we cannot say no. The Health Secretary has decided more care should go into the community so cottage hospitals will become more like health centres." Plans must be in place by the beginning of October.