The decision by Powys County Council (PCC) and the Local Health Board (LHB) to take tentative steps towards a possible merger is something of a milestone in Wales’s history.
It seems the Welsh Assembly government has finally grasped that it cannot continue to shoehorn Powys into the same rigid urban model as the rest of Wales.
But what is really in Ministers’ minds in allowing these two bodies to even consider something so new?
Is it an unexpected openness to the proposition that communities are far better equipped to govern themselves than some distant, indifferent administration?
Or is it a cynical dumping of responsibility for the “Powys Problem”, backed by a veiled threat of something worse if the LHB and PCC refuse to play ball?
Regardless of the answer, here is a rare chance for us to be able to think - and act - differently. After all, we can’t solve problems by using the same thinking that created them.
With such a monumental undertaking, fraught with complications, the government will need the people of Powys to support the LHB and PCC in their endeavour. Yet, here in Powys, where our views are usually so readily disregarded, we can be forgiven for raising a wary eyebrow.
Well-wishing sceptics like me will be pleased that a Welsh Conservative/Lib Dem amendment made it clear that PCC’s commitment was not irrevocable, but dependent on overcoming considerable obstacles. Is that enough for the Minister? Can this government really step away from its mantle of micromanagement and interference?
If this programme is genuinely to be devised and driven by the county and its residents, then how about a few signals from Cardiff Bay.
First, let’s see the Welsh Assembly government get its foot on the accelerator to complete the Integrated Health & Social Care Centre in Builth. It’s a flagship project which, when it gets going, would help prove to us that PCC and the LHB are capable of dealing with a bigger merger.
Secondly, let’s see some guarantees over future funding of any new body. Countrywide cuts in public service funding are inevitable, but some savings must be retained for improving services in Powys, not hived off for other parts of the country or chipping away at Gordon Brown’s unprecedented debt.
And finally, to show that she really means it when she says Powys is different, let’s start talking differently about our ambulance provision. Until this happens, this critical part of our health service could prove the lead in the boots of any march of progress towards better health care in this county.