Hertsmere Primary Care Trust (PCT) the body responsible for commissioning health services in the borough will cease to exist from October when it will be merged with three other PCTs in the county, it was confirmed this week.

The merger is part of a shake-up of the NHS announced by health secretary Patricia Hewitt on Tuesday. It will see the number of PCTs in England reduced from 303 to 152, a move designed to save £250 million a year.

Hertsmere PCT, which was formed in 2000, will be merged with St Albans and Harpenden PCT, Dacorum PCT and the Watford and Three Rivers PCT to create West Hertfordshire PCT. The new organisation will commission health care for more than 500,000 people.

The decision comes after a range of options were considered to reduce the number of PCTs in Hertfordshire. The eight currently in the county will be reduced to two.

The number of Ambulance Service NHS Trusts has been halved from 29 to 12 nationwide and the number of Strategic Health Authorities (SHA) reduced from 28 to ten.

From July 1, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust will form part of a much larger East of England Ambulance Service, alongside Essex and East Anglia.

Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire SHA, which has overall responsibility for overseeing the delivery of health services across the region, will be merged with Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire SHAs into an East of England SHA from July.

A spokeperson from the Department of Health said it was too early to tell whether there would have to be job losses and redundancies as a result of the changes.