CATS plan ongoing despite Government pull out (From Preston and Leyland Citizen)

CATS plan ongoing despite Government pull out

11:17am Monday 19th November 2007 in News By Andrew Greaves

Health chiefs in Lancashire are to go ahead with plans for a private health centre in Preston despite the Government saying it will not back it.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced that the Department of Health will not be proceeding with the national procurement of Clinical Assessment Treatment and Support Services (CATS) in Cumbria and Lancashire.

This includes the planned centre, to be run by South African firm Netcare UK, at the Healthport in Preston, close to the former Sharoe Green Hospital.

But the Central Lancashire Primary Care Trust has said it will continue to negotiate with Netcare UK at local level.

Mark Wilkinson, Chief Executive, said: "What Alan Johnson is saying, is that the government does not think it is right for them to continue to negotiate on CATS.

"What was going to happen was that this contract was going to be negotiated nationally, but the money that was going to pay for it was going to come out of Central Lancashire's allocation.

"But now the government position is that it is no longer going to negotiate it on the PCT's behalf, and it is up to us to negotiate this locally.

"We have now got back local ownership of the contract negotiations.

"It will put the PCT back into the driving seat."

In his statement to Parliament, Mr Johnson said that the centres did not provide good value for money and that the NHS locally was already capable of delivering services.

The Government's backdown has been praised by the Keep Our NHS Public group which has been lobbying against plans for the CATS centre since it was announced last year.

Local Respect councillor and campaign co-ordinator Michael Lavalette said: "At last the government have seen the error of their ways.

"We are utterly opposed to handing over public money, for public services to private, for-profit, companies.

Now the government agrees this makes no sense and the PCT should follow them now and abandon this mad-cap scheme."