Health Services (Gloucestershire)

I agree. The matter concerns patients going to and from hospital not only for treatment, but for consultations. The distances will be much larger than those currently travelled to the community hospital. Will the Minister explain how my constituents in the Cotswolds will get better care closer to home? The Government and the PCTs have said that that will be the case, but I find it hard to believe if their community hospital is closed. Since I have been a Member of Parliament, the health service has been subject to constant reorganisation. When the Conservative party left office in 1997, there were area health authorities, which this Government reorganised into strategic health authorities. As has been said, there was one care trust for Gloucestershire, which was considered to be too big. It was reorganised into three primary care trusts, which are now considered to be too small and will be merged back into one PCT. Indeed, the SHA set up by this Government will be merged into at least two SHAs. All that reorganisation costs a great deal of money—it means that people are made redundant and that offices are closed. We should reorganise the health service now, but then we should leave it alone for 10 years. Is the Minister sure that the figures that she has been given by her health service chiefs are robust, because we do not want another round of cuts in Gloucestershire? I do not think that the cost of rebuilding all those new facilities has been properly calculated, and I do not think that the current cuts will be the last, although I look forward to receiving an assurance from the Minister that they will be.