LOCAL groups and councils have been invited to debate spending cuts and changes to health services.

South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust has organised a listening exercise to help it balance a £4 million budget deficit and create a healthcare system for the 21st Century.

More than 250 organisations have been invited to discuss the proposals at workshops next week.

Alec Kendall, the trust's development manager, said the meetings were not a formal consultation process but a way of listening to views about the way forward.

A list of proposed cuts and changes drawn up for the debate does not appear to include the new Malvern Hospital project.

Dr Kendall said the listening exercise would be money extremely well spent.

"We've got to have a systematic way of involving people at the earliest stages of decision making," he said.

"That is what best practice is and that is what the Secretary of State has asked us to do."