No PCT promise from Hutton

Health minister John Hutton refused to reassure NHS Alliance annual conference delegates in Bournemouth that the government would not reduce the numbers of primary care trusts.

Mr Hutton - speaking to the conference via satellite link from the Department of Health - refused to give a yes or no answer to the question 'will the government reduce the number of PCTs?' despite being invited to twice by the conference chair, BBC To d a y programme presenter John Humphrys. He answered: 'We have no current plans to reduce the numbers of PCTs.'

But Mr Hutton hinted at changes on the horizon earlier in the debate.

He said: 'Structures and boundaries are not there for all time...I do not want to pitch the NHS into another round of restructuring, but we need to get the right sort of touch between PCTs and strategic health authorities, and It is not right at the moment.'

His comments were followed by a plea from NHS Alliance chair Dr Michael Dixon for the government to give PCTs the freedom to configure their own commissioning structures: 'Surely if the centre believes in PCTs and local clinicians, then it must trust them to commission as they see best within national priorities. It is fair to tell us what to do, but not how to do it, ' he said.

Dr Dixon told delegates it was time to 'get angry' and 'get rid of the mad magician of Whitehall', which treated frontline primary care managers and clinicians as 'rats that run around the magician's maze, jumping to his commands' and whose views are ignored.

'From primary care-led NHS in name to primary care-led NHS in action. Now we must lead the NHS out of its darkness, away from the bureaucratic monolith and deliver an effective primary care-led NHS.'

Three to one: Liverpool merger Central Liverpool primary care trust chief executive Derek Campbell has taken over as chief executive of all three of the city's PCTs following a decision to merge all management functions of Central, North and South Liverpool PCTs.

Mr Campbell will take responsibility of a 'fully integrated annual management budget'of over£620m and primary care services for Liverpool's 460,000-strong population.

The decision to merge was taken as a result of the new 'market management agenda' characterised by policy direction on choice, practice-based commissioning and payment by results, said Mr Campbell.

South Liverpool PCT chair Beatrice Fraenkel said the merger was also driven by the challenges of delivering a major local service reconfiguration agenda (see On Location, pages 14-15).