SOME mental health patients are worried their care will come second when a new NHS trust is formed to look after them.

Sarah Dugan, who will be chief executive of the new Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, revealed patient concerns about mental health care at a meeting at the Civic Centre in Pershore.

Mrs Dugan will formally become a chief executive of the trust when it is officially formed on Friday, July 1.

As previously reported in your Worcester News the new trust will manage a range of “community” health services, including the county’s five community hospitals in Malvern, Pershore, Evesham, Tenbury and Bromsgrove but also mental health services including Newtown Hospital in Worcester and the psychiatric intensive care unit on the same site.

Mental health services were run by the Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust which is scheduled to be dissolved.

Mrs Dugan said: “One of the anxieties is coming more from service users from the mental health trust who want to make sure that mental health services aren’t going to get swamped by the community services.”

However, she said some directors at the new trust had been drawn from the old mental health trust who have a knowledge of mental health issues. Simon Trickett, director of communications and corporate development, said everything was in place for the new organisation to be established on July 1 and the mental health trust to be dissolved.

He said Sarah Dugan, who will lead the new trust, had completed key appointments to her executive team, including four non-executive directors while a place for a fifth such director had been advertised.

He said: “There will be a full complement and a full board in place.

“That’s a real luxury when an NHS board is created. That doesn’t happen very often. We’re in a fortunate position in that respect.”

One of the first missions for the new trust, Mr Trickett said, will be to apply to become a foundation trust.

Foundation trusts are NHS trusts which have greater freedom from central Government to decide how money is spent and have a public membership and representatives in the hope that it makes healthcare more accountable.

Mr Trickett said the mental health trust could become a FT before 2014.

Dr Ros Keeton, the outgoing chief executive of the mental health trust which is set to be dissolved, has found a position with the Strategic Health Authority, a regional body which acts as an arm of the Government in NHS matters.

l Your Worcester News reporter was the only member of the media at this meeting.