About the Black Country Cluster

The Black Country Cluster was formally established on 1 April 2011 and brought together, under a single senior management structure, four Primary Care Trusts – Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton City.
The Cluster serves a population of more than 1 million people and controls an annual healthcare commissioning budget of around £2 billion.

The Cluster has two main roles:

Securing resilience, leadership and continuing delivery: To ensure that its constituent PCTs have the management capacity in 2011-12 and 2012-13 to remain focussed on priorities for planning, developing and delivering safe, high quality healthcare services for local people, and to provide leadership for the staff who have to deliver this vital work.
Managing the transition: To effectively manage the transition of key roles, responsibilities and functions from PCTs to the new organisations which will manage them from April 2013, when the changes to the NHS set out in the Health and Social Care Bill are due to take full effect and, where necessary, to support the development of those receiving organisations so that they are fit for purpose