'All NHS trusts and health boards to be scrapped'

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

ALL NHS trusts and local health boards will be scrapped by October 2009, Health Minister Edwina Hart announced today.

The seven new integrated organisations, which will be responsible for commissioning and providing hospital and community-based services, must be up and running, in shadow form, by June 2009.

The chairs and vice-chairs of the new bodies will be appointed in the new year.

But the national advisory and delivery boards which will oversee the day-to-day running of the health service in Wales following restructuring, will be in place by April 2009.

Mrs Hart last night announced the fine details of her plans for the biggest overhaul of the NHS in a generation in an oral statement to the National Assembly.

She also said that the seven new bodies will be based on the current LHB model to ensure that they continue to "encourage and promote partnership working".

She said: "It offers a much better ‘fit’, I believe, with the key Assembly Government policy objective of abolishing the internal market in the health service."

A further consultation exercise about the details of the seven new bodies will be launched next month.

Mrs Hart said she wants the new bodies to combine the best aspects of the current NHS trusts and LHBs. They could also include professional forums to ensure that frontline clinicians and experts can share their advice with board members.

She added: "I am also determined that we open up membership of boards to a wider range of individuals than has been the case hitherto.

"There is a pool of talent in Wales which we need to foster, and then to deploy.

"In setting up these local bodies what is fundamentally important to me is that they are able to improve patient care by reducing bureaucracy and removing artificial boundaries within the NHS, allowing more money to be channelled into frontline services, and for the planning and development of services to be joined up more effectively, both in the context of community plans and the government’s strategic direction for health care in Wales."