As regular readers of this blog will know from Rich’s excellent posts on the recent health white paper, primary care trusts (PCTs) are set to be scrapped in favour of GPs commissioning health services. On this subject, I was interested to read this today in the Health Service Journal:
Primary care trust chief executives have begun planning how they can transform themselves into organisations providing support to GP commissioning consortia.
NHS Salford chief executive Mike Burrows told HSJ he was in the early stages of looking at creating a support organisation, potentially a social enterprise involving all 10 PCTs in Manchester.
Before anything concrete can be shown to PCT boards, Mr Burrows said, decisions had to be made on what the organisation’s business plan would be and what organisational form it would eventually take.
It made me wonder whether, irrespective of the manifest problems and unanswered questions that plague the white paper (such as those highlighted by Paul Corrigan and summarised here) this isn’t a classic case of previously superfluous organisations being forced to prove their worth in order to survive? Which doesn’t feel like a particularly bad thing, does it?
arbitrary constant 