About Gloucestershire PCT

Gloucestershire PCT was formed on 1st October 2006 and replaced the three former Primary Care Trusts in Gloucestershire (Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, Cotswold and Vale and West Gloucestershire).

The organisation serves a population of approximately 602,000 and covers the following district council areas: Cotswold, Cheltenham, Forest of Dean, Gloucester, Tewkesbury Borough and Stroud.

The PCT is responsible for commissioning healthcare for its population. It has contracts with 83 GP Practices and runs 10 community hospitals and a maternity hospital. It also provides a range of community services such as podiatry, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, district nursing and health visiting.

The PCT has a budget of £751million for 2007/2008 (and a forecast budget of £786m for 2008/2009) and currently employs approximately 2,250 whole time equivalent members of staff.

The main roles of our PCT are to:

• engage with the local population to improve health and well being
• commission a comprehensive and equitable range of high quality, responsive and efficient services and;
• directly provide services where this gives best value.
  

As a countywide organisation, the PCT recognises how important it is to retain a local focus so that the valuable working relationships that have been built with primary care, local councils and a wide range of committed community and voluntary groups continue to be strengthened. The PCT believes that its future success will depend on this co-operation and joint working.

Vision and Values

The PCT’s Vision Statement was published following extensive consultation with staff and partners and this is set out below:

Our Vision

Achieving excellence in health for the people of Gloucestershire

Our Values

We should:

• work with our patients to promote and support healthy living and self care
  
  
• promote innovation in patient care and celebrate success
  
  
• provide sustainable services as close to the patient’s home as possible where this is consistent with safe, quality and cost effective care
  
  
• pay proper attention to partnerships and involve service users, carers, staff, contractors, partners, and the public in developing services
  
  
• listen to our local communities and learn from feedback
  
  
• communicate clearly and be honest about what can be achieved and the challenges ahead
  
  
• treat our service users, carers and staff fairly with respect and politeness
  
  
• trust and support our staff
  
  
• value the diversity of our staff and our population.
  

This is an ambitious statement, but the PCT Board is committed to working with its staff to embed these important values into our culture and reflect them in our strategy, structures and services.

PCT Priorities

The national and local agenda for the NHS will bring us some significant challenges this year and includes the following specific priorities:

• Achieving robust financial health
  
• Reducing health inequalities
  
• Achieving the national 31 and 62 day cancer waiting time targets for patients who have been referred urgently by their GP
  
• Achieving a maximum 18 week wait from GP referral to hospital treatment
  
• Reductions in MRSA and improving infection control
  
• Patient Choice and Booking
  
• Sexual Health services.

The PCT is also committed to improving mental health services, in particular early intervention and crisis resolution and we must also plan effectively for an ageing population by developing services for older people and focusing on carer support.

Information about the services provided by the PCT can be found in the 'Our Services' section of this website.