23 February 2007
Ministers will this week assure MPs that legislation will be amended to ensure that NHS trusts are required to work with councils to meet locally agreed targets.
The local government white paper included hospital trusts among those partners to be placed under a duty to co-operate to agreed Local Area Agreement targets. But trusts had disappeared from the list once the Bill was published two months later in December. The omission fuelled concern that the government's commitment to partnership working across local agencies was not as strong as it might be.
But Public Finance has learnt that local government minister Phil Woolas is to tell the standing committee considering the Bill that an amendment will reintroduce NHS trusts to the list of partners.
Department for Communities and Local Government sources stressed that the Department of Health was fully behind the LAA agenda but told PF that there had been difficulties with how to name NHS trusts.
Some services provided by NHS trusts are not tied to a locality, a source said, citing Great Ormond Street hospital, which treats patients from all over the country.
This would place a burden on both councils and trusts to replicate the consultation process for different LAAs. The DCLG and the DoH have been working on a form of words to get round the problem, the source said. This new wording is likely to be introduced as a government amendment at the report stage of the bill.
Amelia Cookson, a policy analyst with the Local Government Information Unit, said the return of hospital trusts to the Bill was welcome news.
'As much as the duty still needs work to have teeth, not including the trusts would send a clear negative message that they were exempt from partnership work… It is hard to imagine any plan for improving the health and wellbeing of an area that doesn't need the complete cooperation and support of the local hospital,' she said.
DCLG officials are also concerned that practitioners out in the sector are not picking up on the potential of the new model of LAAs as set out in the White Paper. The department this week published a document on the future of LAAs, putting more flesh on the bones of the proposals and inviting local government to respond.
PFfeb2007
