Proposed Government changes to Primary Care Trusts will make decision making about local health services more remote from local people, Harlow's Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesman Lorna Spenceley told a public consultation meeting organised by the Strategic Health Authority at the Latton Bush Centre tonight.

The Secretary of State has ruled that Harlow cannot continue to have its own Primary Care Trust, and must be part of a bigger Trust. One proposal is that the new Trust could be so big that it would be responsible for 1,300,000 people and cover the whole of Essex apart from Southend and Thurrock. Mrs Spenceley said:

"The Government has expressed laudable aims for this consultation, but some of them are contradictory and I'm sceptical that the Government's proposals will achieve them in any case. The Government says it wants to involve local people in health decisions, but then creates larger and more remote health trusts. It says it wants to make health trusts better partners for local councils, but we already have good partnerships up and running in Harlow. It says it wants to cut management costs and put money into front-line services, but admits the proposals will actually cost more money and create major upheaval for at least two years.

It's very disappointing that the Government hasn't allowed local people to express a preference to keep our current arrangements, rather than keeping the NHS in turmoil and wasting money with endless reorganisations. We could have then looked at ways to reduce management costs through Essex Primary Care Trusts sharing back-office services, which would have kept our local PCTs and kept them in touch with local people."

The four options being consulted on are:
- 2 PCTs (North Essex; South Essex)
- 3 PCTS (Thurrock; Southend; rest of Essex)
- 4 PCTs (Thurrock; Southend; North Essex; rest of South Essex)
- 5 PCTs (Mid; North East; South East; South West; West).

The consultation questionnaire is available online, and the deadline for responses is 22 March.