The Department of Health ordered Primary Care Trusts to group to together in the wake of the 2010 health White Paper to ‘create space' for GP consortia and to avert ‘unplanned erosion of PCT capability while the new system develops'. Clusters also help to save on management costs by pooling teams.
PCTs have been told to have their clustering arrangements in place by June 2011. The clusters are nominally set to be abolished in April 2013, although the Government has recently suggested that some clusters may survive beyond that date.
PCT cluster implementation guidance
