Councils and health trusts ‘must overlap’

Councils and health trusts ‘must overlap’ The Local Government
Association has called on the government to ensure common
boundaries between primary care trusts and councils in forthcoming
reforms to PCTs.

In a report this week, the LGA’s community well-being board says
that ensuring councils and PCTs serve the same communities would
support the government’s ambitions for ever closer working between
social care and health.

The Department of Health is due to publish a “fitness-for-purpose”
review on PCTs, which will look at their boundaries, among other
issues.

County councils would typically have several PCTs within their
boundaries, while local authorities and trusts in urban areas would
more often have common frontiers.

The LGA report says the government’s policy direction, embodied in
the adult green paper and plans for a white paper on
out-of-hospital health care, entailed much closer partnership
working.

It also calls for local authorities to be given a leading role in
the health care white paper.

The report is available from www.lga.gov.uk/About.asp?lsection=758&ccat=921