A proposed shake up in how health facilities are run has been unveiled today.

The move will see the formation of one unified Care Trust that would be responsible for all social care and health services in Brighton and Hove.

The only exception is the district hospital services run by Brighton Health Care Trust, which will continue as a separate organisation.

The new trust will be formed through the merger of current facilities provided by South Downs NHS Trust, Brighton and Hove Council's social care and health department and Brighton and Hove Primary Care Group.

This includes areas such as community care, visits from district nurses, mental health care, nursing home accommodation and GP facilities.

All three organisations already work closely together and the aim of the merger is to improve services for patients by giving them just one organisation to deal with instead of three.

The new trust will have a budget of more than £200 million to provide all primary patient care services to a population of between 250,000 and 260,000.

Alan Bowman, director of social care and health at Brighton and Hove said: "It will help to speed things up for patients which will in turn speed up their recovery.

"We are still very much at the discussion stage and there is a long way to go before any final decisions are made.

"We are confident this is the right way forward to provide a unified and efficiently run service for the thousands of patients we all treat every year."

A series of public consultations and discussions will be held in the next few years before the new trust is eventually formed in about four years time.