Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has announced that the 4 regional health-boards will be merged into a single Northern Ireland health board as part of plans to save "more than £53 million by April 2011" and reduce the number of staff by about 1,700, including reductions in the Minister's department.

The HSS trusts have already been merged following recommendations in the Review of Public Administration, resulting in a reduction in number from 18 to 5 and McGimpsey has gone further than the RPA recommended on Local Commissioning Groups; the RPA recommended 7 (co-terminus with the new super councils). Instead there will be 5, mapping onto the boundaries of the health trusts.

There's no doubt (in my mind, certainly) that the public sector here is bloated. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of that situation.

Update: Apparently redundancy payments will cost in the region of £70m. I would assume that this is included in the £53m savings, but that is not made explicit.