Flogging off the PCT - A Health Observer Special

The announcment yesterday that Patricia Hewitt wants to sell off some local NHS management functions made me think a little flippantly locally, "would we notice"? There so little movement of developing a local vision of Local Care Hospitals perhaps the threat might mean we would see a bit more rapid action?

More seriously I would imagine the Sutton Health Scrutiny Committee would be concerned if "estimating the health needs of the area" was actually privatised as I could see some serious conflicts of interest arising over the assessment of health inequalities.

However if additional support, over and above existing services, is being purchased to assist patients to make better choices, then I would be much more supportive, as we could have a varied mix of providers including in-house and social enterprise as well as larger health consortiums providing support.