A PATIENT group from the region has written to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to protest about merger plans.

The Government wants to simplify patient representation in the National Health Service by merging mental health trust forums into primary care trust forums.

But members of the Patient and Public Involvement forum (PPI) for County Durham and Darlington Priority Services NHS Trust say that mental health patients will not be well served by such a move.

They say that forums based solely on primary care trusts (PCTS), which are mainly concerned with GPs and community nurses, will not have the time a specialist forum can devote to mental health matters.

In the letter, the forum writes: "Mental health has for too long been seen as the Cinderella sector of the NHS and this merging of its PPI forums into several PCT forums simply confirms the lack of thought from the Department of Health that goes into the needs of mental health patients.

"Mental health patients will lose a valuable and powerful voice with this dilution."

Forum chairman Patrick Nethercot said: "Many people will suffer from some sort of mental health problem at some point in their lives.

"There is already enough stigma attached to this and these people need their own strong voice. This is a retrograde step."

The forums were set up after the former Health Secretary Alan Milburn, MP for Darlington, ordered the abolition of community health councils.