FARNHAM Town Council has attacked the "financially driven" nature of options put forward by Waverley and Guildford Primary Care Trust for "modernising" local healthcare. And in its reply to the PCT's consultation on five options for the future of services provided at Farnham, Haslemere, Milford and Cranleigh, the town council has decribed the proposals as "premature" in the light of the uncertain future facing the PCT itself. The council's comments began by welcoming the overall objective of trying to reduce the number of people being treated in the Royal Surrey and Frimley Park acute hospitals. The aim of an expanded community care service, treating patients through community hospitals and improved home-based care and support, was applauded, with the comment: "Farnham Town Council in particular supports the proposals to provide patients with outpatient appointments and medical investigations as near to their homes as possible." But the council went on to point out that the five options presented seem to run counter to the consultation itself, being as much driven by the PCT's financial position as by the clinical considerations of what will improve the treatment of patients living in Farnham. "Rather than providing improved and expanded community and home care health services, all of the options proposed by the PCT would appear to increase the distances people in Waverley have to travel to receive community care. "In the view of the town council, all the proposed options would result in a substantial reduction in the level of community health provision across Waverley, based as they are on financial considerations instead of improvements to the quality of public health care for local residents." "We are being consulted on proposals by an organisation that will cease to exist by the time any of the options come into being," council leader Mark Norris told fellow members at a town council meeting. He was referring to the consultation begun last month by the Surrey & Sussex Strategic Health Authority (SHA) which may lead to the merger of Surrey's current PCTs into one county-wide PCT. The town council, in its comments, stressed that any decisions about the future provision of services should be made in the broader context of the new PCT structure coming into force in the very near future. "The options being presented to the people of Farnham in the current report are therefore entirely premature," the PCT has been told. Chris Mansell, speaking at the council meeting, described the consultation as "a very cynical exercise" in which he saw the PCT as very much the victim, rather than the perpetrator. "Clearly they have been pushed into this consultation so that they can provide convenient fall guys that no longer exist," he said.
