SHA rebuts criticism of PCT transfer proposals

8 Sep 05
A strategic health authority at the centre of a row over whether it was rushing the transfer of primary care trust services has denied it jumped the gun.

09 September 2005

A strategic health authority at the centre of a row over whether it was rushing the transfer of primary care trust services has denied it jumped the gun.

Last week, the Department of Health told SHAs to stop asking trusts to produce plans detailing how they will move their services, such as district nursing and physiotherapy, to other providers.

Under July's NHS policy document Commissioning a patient-led NHS, PCTs must relinquish their provider role by 2008, but in some cases it was claimed that they had been asked to do so much earlier. The trusts' new role will be outlined in the 'out of hospital' care white paper, due at the turn of the year.

The alarm was raised by the NHS Alliance, which represents PCTs. It said the Birmingham and the Black Country SHA had given its 12 trusts until the end of August to produce the plans.

For now, SHAs must come up only with proposals for new trust boundaries – they will be largely coterminous with local authorities by October 2006 – by October 15 this year.

However, Birmingham's chief executive David Nicholson reportedly claimed that the accusation was 'ill-informed nonsense'.

An SHA spokeswoman added that the authority had simply completed preparatory work that had put it 'ahead of the game'.

'Following these early and ongoing discussions, we are working with trusts in putting forward their proposals in respect of commissioning arrangements – which we will then consult upon, putting us in a strong position to move toward changes to PCT provision by the end of 2008,' she added.

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