Primary care plans worry capital chiefs

London health leaders have joined their counterparts in social services in warning that government plans to cut the number of PCTs may wreck flourishing arrangements between trusts and councils.

NHS heads told the National PCT Conference that existing partnerships, based on common boundaries, could be broken up by the process.

Paul Mitchell, director of modernisation at Richmond & Twickenham PCT, warned against cutting the number of trusts in London, where all but two trusts are coterminous with individual councils.

He said: “We have the benefits of coterminosity but we stand to lose those benefits. Joint working is very much at risk at the moment.”

Richard Partin, associate director of service improvement at Lewisham PCT, said its joint commissioning arrangements with the London Borough of Lewisham would be broken up by trust mergers.