The majority of nursing and nurse manager jobs could be transferred to local authority control under the Government's plans to abolish Primary Care Trusts (PCT's), The Nursing Times reports.

The government has already announced that it plans to abolish PCTs in 2013. In a recent white paper, it proposes that their existing health improvement functions are likely to be transferred to local authorities, with the majority of public health nurses transferred into employment with local authorities.

Currently PCT's employ some 82,310 registered nurses and midwives. The majority of these are health visitors (10,538) and district nurses (9,742) though some 2,523 nurse manager jobs are also included in the figure alongside 1,560 school nurses and 1,643 community matrons.

According to The Nursing Times Paul Burstow, the care services minister, has recently met with PCT chief executives with dual roles on local councils to discuss the integration of public health services to council control. It is believed that local integration plans will follow the example of North East Lincolnshire council, who took on 60 public health staff and 130 children's health employees from the NHS as part of local integration plans.

Speaking to Nursing Times, chief executive of NE Lincolnshire council Tony Hunter said that his authority had ensured that the transfer from the NHS to local authority employment would not see professional specialisms "dissipated by going into large council schemes."

He says that the council had been careful to ensure that successful management arrangements and internal networks with other health professionals were retained in the transition.

Obi Adami, the Unite officer for the health sector has warned that this type of transition could be a "culture shock" to some staff but it has already worked well in some places. She has warned that "staff terms and conditions will need to stay the same and their training and development can't be ignored."