Health Services (Gloucestershire)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) on initiating the debate. This is the fourth such debate in which I have taken part over the last month: two of them were about health in Gloucestershire, the others were about maternity provision and community hospitals, which relate directly to my area, where I face the prospect of losing both. Like the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), I took part in the rally in Stroud on Saturday I mentioned to the Minister before we came into the Chamber. It is estimated that about 4,000 people were at the rally, at which both the hon. Member for Cotswold and I were able to speak. There was immense feeling about the proposals and I said that I would echo it in the Chamber—it could certainly have been heard at Westminster. Earlier today, I took part in a meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee organised by the county council, which included representatives from the district councils. I have come straight from that meeting, which is why my brow is more furrowed than normal, and I want to raise with the Minister some points about the consultation on partnership trusts. As the hon. Member for Tewkesbury said, although we managed to extend the PCT consultation so that it takes place over 12 weeks, the consultation period for the partnership trusts—the mental health and learning disability trusts in Gloucestershire—will finish on 23 June, which is a mere five weeks. Without putting words into the mouth of the overview and scrutiny committee, it is fair to say that it is looking carefully into the discontinuity between the PCT consultation, which has yet to start formally, and the consultation on partnership trusts, which has reached the mid-way point, if not the final stage. I hope that the Minister will comment on that, as the situation does not make much sense; another £12 million has yet to be found from the PCTs and, given what they could later demand, that could have an enormous impact on the partnership trusts.