NHS TRUST BRANDED "WEAK" BY REPORT

3.28.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 17th Oct 2007

Commenting today on a damaging new report from the Healthcare Commission, which identifies Worcestershire's Primary Care Trust as being "weak" on the use of its resources, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesman for Health in the West Midlands & local Parliamentary Candidate, Richard Burt, said:

"This report clearly shows that the government's insistence to force NHS Trusts into financial balance has been achieved at the cost of real improvements to local services and to the best use of NHS resources within Worcestershire.

"It would be far better to give the local Trust the freedom to decide how it should best use its resources rather than having to meet arbitrary targets set by the government."

Mr. Burt, who earlier this month uncovered that the local PCT had to borrow a substantial sum of money from the Department of Health in order to balance its annual accounts continued:

"Because the Trust has been forced to borrow £25 million, we will see a further squeeze on its resources in the next two years as the PCT will be forced to repay its loan to the Department of Health at a time when annual funding increases will be cut in half.

"If growth is more than 1.25%, there will be insufficient resources available to meet the demand for health services."

"What more do we need to demonstrate that if Worcestershire Primary Care Trust is to make the improvements that patients require, NHS Trusts need far more local freedom to deliver sevices - not centrally driven targets by Whitehall mandarins?"