NHS Reorganisation

I suspect that most hon. Members will want to speak tonight about the reorganisation of the primary care trusts. I must say how good it is to have PCTs in the first place. Most hon. Members will wish to support their local PCT, and I suspect that that support is based on the fact that they are local, because that is their great strength. They are able to focus the NHS on a local area, more accurately assess local need, and receive fair funding provision based on applying the formula to a precise local area. They can also develop good local relationships with GPs, pharmacists, other providers and the voluntary sector. They can be held to account locally by local stakeholders, not least patients and hon. Members. Waveney PCT, which serves my area, is the best thing that has happened to that area organisationally. However, with the introduction of GP practice-based commissioning, mergers are necessary. In determining the new configuration, we should apply the same principles that I have just given as the benefits of PCTs, so that the merged bodies can effectively focus on and serve a local area. For my area, that has to be a merger between Waveney and Great Yarmouth PCTs. I have mentioned Great Yarmouth PCT, so I must declare an interest in that my wife works for it. However, my wife long ago gave up calculating what might be the consequences for her of NHS reorganisations in our area, because she has been reorganised four times in the past 10 years. We can all agree that we could do with less reorganisation in the NHS, but my area has had at least one positive result from all the reorganisations we have had, in that clear lessons have been learned about what works and what does not work in the area. We know that county-wide NHS organisation does not work for my constituency, but the Great Yarmouth and Waveney combination does. When we had Suffolk health—