MPs and GPs are concerned primary care trusts have already begun losing some of their best managers ahead of their proposed abolition.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association GPs’ committee, told the health select committee’s hearing on commissioning that he was aware of whole departments where people had accepted redundancy.

He said: “We do have concerns that senior PCT managers are leaving; the very people who we need in the future to make these changes work,” he said.

Labour MP Rosie Cooper told the committee she was seeing some of the best health managers in her own constituency of West Lancashire moving on.

She said: “These are the people who have been abused as a drain on the NHS but that’s not true.

“The question is, if they have been treated the way they have been, why would they stay in the hope that at the end of this someone may or may not employ them?”

Dr Vautrey said experienced health service managers would be vital to the new GP consortia.

“What’s been lacking is a very clear message from the centre saying we value you and we do want you to stay,” he said.

The comments came as HSJ research found relatively few PCT employees had applied to the Department of Health’s mutually agreed resignation scheme. However the terms of that scheme are less generous than the NHS redundancy scheme.

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the council of the Royal College of GPs, told the committee he would like to see more support for managers during the next 18 months.

He told HSJ:  “We can’t keep everybody in employment but I think we should be doing a skills assessment.”

Members of the committee also questioned the pace of the reforms.

Addressing the panel of witnesses, which also included chief executive of the NHS Alliance Mike Sobanja and Dr James Kingsland, president of the National Association of Primary Care, Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George said: “This is a white paper not a government bill.

“It seems to me that the government has said all of you jump and you’ve said ‘how high?’”.

Sarah Wollaston a Conservative MP and GP for 16 years, questioned whether a slower, “evolutionary” process of change would have been better.

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