What are Primary Care Trusts (PCTs)?
Healthcare in the UK is divided into 'primary' and 'secondary' services.
Primary care services are provided by the people you normally see when you first have a health problem. It might be a visit to a doctor or dentist, to an optician for an eye test, or a trip to a pharmacist to buy cough mixture. NHS Walk-in centres and the NHS Direct phone service are also part of primary care.
All of these primary care services are managed by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). There are about 300 Primary Care Trusts in England, each one covering a separate local area.
PCTs decide what health services a local community needs, and they are responsible for providing them. They must ensure that there are enough services for people within their local area, and that the services are accessible. These services include:
-
GPs,
- Dentists,
- Pharmacists,
- Opticians,
- NHS Direct, and
- NHS walk-in centres.
PCTs make decisions about the type of services that hospitals provide and are responsible for making sure that the quality of service is high enough.
As PCTs are local organisations, they are in a good position to understand the needs of their local community. They make sure that NHS organisations work effectively with local authorities, and other agencies that provide local health and social care services, so that the local community’s treatment needs are met.
PCTs are a very important part of the NHS, and they get about 80% of the total NHS budget. They also control funding for hospitals. For more information about how the NHS is run and where PCTs fit in, visit NHS England.
Please use the links in the left hand navigation to get details of the kinds of services that can be accessed in Blackburn with Darwen.
