Number of trusts to be halved in health reforms

Ambulance and local health trusts are to be cut by half, the Government announced yesterday in its latest re-organisation of the NHS in England.

The Department of Health said the amalgamations would produce savings of £250 million a year to be diverted to frontline services but could not say how many jobs might be lost, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The changes will cut the number of primary care trusts (PCTs) from 303 to 152 and ambulance trusts from 29 to 12.

"At this stage it is not possible to calculate the number of job losses or associated costs of redundancies," a spokesman said.