03 May 2002
At a conference in London marking the official launch of PCTs, which was also addressed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, Health Secretary Alan Milburn said the trusts would not be limited in their spending on management.
Previously, PCTs' spending on managers' salaries was capped each year, prompting the trusts to complain that they did not have the management capacity needed to deliver the government's modernisation programme.
A circular from Milburn's department gives PCTs the freedom to buy care from whichever provider is most appropriate and confirms that funding allocations will be over three years.
'To make planning possible for the medium term, I intend to give PCTs three years of funding,' Milburn said. 'I hope that will allow you to plan with confidence and stability rather than face the ups and downs of the traditional NHS annual planning cycle.
'And to help you do so, with immediate effect, PCTs will be given the freedom to decide what to spend on their own clinical management infrastructure, so they have the expertise to do the job they need to do.'
Milburn added that he wanted PCTs to use the extra resources to reshape how local services are delivered. This would mean a greater emphasis on prevention, more local partnerships to help tackle health inequalities and extra investment in primary and community care.
'The whole point of PCTs is to have one organisation with one budget able to get the right balance of local services for the community. It is not then a question of primary versus secondary care but how services can be reshaped in the best interests of patients.'
Blair told the 300 PCT chief executives attending the conference that they were in the 'vanguard' of NHS reform.
He said his government's vision for the health service was of a devolved health care system where frontline staff were trusted to redesign care around the needs of patients.
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