EAST Lancashire is to play a key role in the government's demolition of the internal market the Tories created in the NHS.
For health secretary Frank Dobson announced today that Blackburn and Darwen will be among the 42 pilot projects for replacing the GP-fundholding system with the commissioning by local communities of health services from the NHS that provide them.
It will be one nail in the Tory health services reforms that East Lancashire will be glad to hammer home - because fundholding did lead to two-tier health care and pitted doctors against each other in the scrap for patients and cash.
And as we saw only this month in East Lancashire, when it was revealed that fundholding practices shown to be underspent by more than £1million, money meant for patient care ended up going elsewhere.
Frank's right to put it right. And we are happy to help.
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