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NHS Reorganisation

Obviously, there are one or two of my hon. Friends whom we need to work more closely with to persuade them of our case. One of the best ways to give patients more of a say in local services is to empower the health care professionals who are closest to the patients. Larger PCTs do not mean more remote PCTs. That is why practice-based commissioning is being rolled out alongside reconfiguration, giving GPs and primary care professionals more freedom to redesign better services for their patients. Strengthening local commissioning will mean that the money is spent in communities where there is greatest need, rather than being sucked into areas where the demand is more vocal. As was pointed out earlier, our proposed reconfiguring of organisations will strengthen relationships between health care professionals and local authorities through greater coterminosity. London boroughs and PCTs, for example, are bringing about genuine improvements in the delivery of primary and social care in the boroughs. Those improvements have been enabled by the coterminous arrangement of PCT boundaries with social service local boroughs. Currently, just over 40 per cent. of PCTs are coterminous with local government boundaries, and we expect that figure to rise to almost 80 per cent. as a result of the proposed changes in PCT boundaries. Ambulance trusts and SHAs are likely to see their boundaries much more closely aligned with those of the Government offices for the regions.