THE spread of primary care health trusts throughout East Lancashire would cost millions in extra management costs, a councillor warned.

Burnley finance chairman Peter Kenyon said proposals to create the area's first trust in Blackburn and Darwen, with the power to raise its own cash rather than be given funding by East Lancashire Health Authority, showed it would itself incur additional management costs of £400,000.

If eight trusts were formed for the whole area extra, costs would top £2 million, he told Burnley Council's general purposes committee.

Dentist Coun Kenyon said the switch from the present primary care groups to trusts would undermine the health authority's commissioning role.

"East Lancashire Health Authority would have the guts taken out of it in terms of what it could deliver," he said.

He was concerned that money would be diverted from patient care to management.

The committee was meeting representatives from the health authority and Blackburn primary care group as part of the consultation process.

Care group chief executive Chris Wolvin said creation of a trust would allow a greater integration of services, enabling the trust to tackle key health problems which a group could not.

There would also be a more effective use of resources, he added.

Health authority chief executive David Peat said Coun Kenyon was right about management costings and it was his view that there should be three trusts in East Lancashire - large enough to attract key staff and the right size to respond to local views and have the clout to deliver health care.

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