'Recipe for health chaos'

Plans to let private and voluntary organisations run primary care services such as district nursing and health visiting have been condemned as a 'recipe for chaos' by West Sussex members of the health service union Unison.

Peter Atkinson, secretary of the county's primary care and mental health branch of the union said the plans had been trailed in a national document called 'Commissioning for a Patient Led NHS.'

The document states that primary care trusts should no longer directly provide services or employ the staff who work in primary care, such as district nurses, school nurses and health visitors and allied administrative staff.

The row has erupted at a time when primary care services in the Chichester, Bognor Regis,Midhurst and Horsham areas are already facing controversy over the possibility of staffing cuts among community nursing staff.

Western Sussex Primary Care Trust maintains that no decisions have yet been taken, and that services to patients will not be affected, but assurances have failed to avoid widespread concern among both doctors and patients about the future of the community nursing service.

For full story see West Sussex Gazette, September 1.