County councillors say a wide-ranging shake-up of health care in Kent is becoming overrun with “a myriad of bureaucrats.”

The Sustainability and Transformational Partnership is a five-year plan for health and social care designed to reflect the changing health needs of the population.

But critics say that it is a cover for health cuts and creeping privatisation and the blueprint is overly bureaucratic.

A report on progress was presented to county councillors last week. It reveals KCC has committed £452,000 on what is described as temporary programme costs.

The same report says the plan will be managed by a chief executive - a role that has been taken up by the former head of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Glenn Douglas.

In addition, two so-called Accountable Care Partnerships are planned to bring together care providers in particular areas to provide services - potentially placing them at odds with Kent’s clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and risking a possible legal challenge.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Cllr Dan Daley said the plan for ACPs was adding yet more tiers to an already complex structure.

“We cannot yet say what they are going to do. All of this is just [moving] deckchairs on the Titanic. The STP won’t be deliverable in two years...we need feet on the ground, not more administration.”

Labour county councillor Barry Lewis said the plan was “not fit for purpose...it is as simple as that.”

“This is being led by financial reasons,not medical reasons. Privatisation is written all over this.”

Cllr Andrew Bowles, the Conservative leader of Swale council, said he shared the sense of frustration and despair felt by his colleagues.

"All of this is just [moving] deckchairs on the Titanic" - Cllr Dan Daley

“We have consistently been talking for 20 years about getting facilities and money out of acute care and into primary care.We are not making sufficient progress.”

It was economic and medical nonsense to think that services could be focused on primary care without having the necessary facilities, he said.

“Bluntly, we have too many boards, too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”

He argued local councils should take charge and dispense with a “myriad of bureaucats.”

Cllr Martin Whybrow (Green) said the wheels were coming off

Council chiefs have identified eight “red lines” to minimise the risk to it given “the financial, regulatory and service complexity across health and social care.”