Threat to health service (From Gazette Series)

Threat to health service

THE health service in the Cotswolds faces a bleak future, according to MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

Following a meeting with the chief executive of the Avon, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Heath Authority Trevor Jones, Mr Clifton-Brown said: "The chief executive gave me a stark and uncompromising message about the Cotswold and Vale Primary Care Trust.

"The fact is the trust has a deficit this current financial year of £5 million - the highest in Gloucestershire.

"It was made clear to me that the Government will not allow trusts to operate outside their means. They have allowed this deficit to build up, and now they must make cuts to save that cash.

"I pleaded for more time to be made available for these drastic cuts to be implemented, but I was told the Government had given strict instructions that all deficits must be cleared by the end of the financial year."

He continued: "It is going to mean more bed cuts in Tetbury, Fairford and Bourton-on-the-Water, and the effect of this will be felt among patients within a matter of months, whatever pretence there is on public consultation.

As with the Gloucestershire ambulance merger with Avon and Wiltshire, decisions will have already been made."

Mr Clifton-Brown said he condemned the situation as totally unacceptable.

"It has been handled appallingly. Finances should have been controlled over a period of time, rather than having devastating cuts thrust upon people as suddenly as this," said the MP.

"As a result, my constituents are going to suffer badly".

Mr Clifton-Brown said he believed the health service in rural areas like the Cotswolds was being savagely cut to meet the Government's overspend on the new GP contract.