SO once again people in Kennet and North Wiltshire are to lose out as someone, somewhere decides the health trust that serves the area does not need its own chief executive.

This is an amazing conclusion to come to considering the area is about to go through one of its biggest ever health challenges.

Proposals have been put forward to close maternity units in Devizes and Malmesbury and there are plans for new hospitals in Devizes and Marlborough.

But the strategic health authority, whoever they may be, has decided that the trust does not need its own boss to oversee these huge changes.

This is despite the Kennet and North Wiltshire Health Trust failing to get even one star when ratings were handed out earlier this year.

Back in the summer when former chief executive Barbara Smith handed in her resignation she was said to be too tired to carry on and it was believed the huge pressures of running the cash-strapped organisation had got to her.

But now when the going is even tougher and thousands of people throughout the area are dependant on the right decisions being made we are being told that another chief executive from a different area can do the job on a part-time basis.

This is a huge insult to people in this part of Wiltshire. Does the strategic health authority not recognise how important it is to get these decisions right?

Does is not realise that people really do care about maternity units and hospitals?

Does it not realise that a wrong decision taken now will blight the area for generations to come?

Does it not realise that it not only needs to make the right decisions but needs to be seen to be making the right ones?

It would appear the answers to all of these questions is no.

It makes a total mockery of consultation when the people looking at the information collected have no knowledge of the area.

A part-time chief executive, who will arrive in January, will not have the background knowledge or the time to find out what needs to be done.

What hope has the authority of raising itself from its zero rating with a chief executive trying to fit it in, as and when it can, when a full time boss failed to do so?