Today, at a board meeting of the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, committee members voted on several proposals affecting service provision at the Horton General Hospital.
In light of their decisions, Banbury and Bicester Conservatives have issued the following statement:
“We are both angry and deeply disappointed at today’s decision by the CCG to permanently downgrade the Horton General Hospital’s maternity service. We have repeatedly expressed our concerns that a permanent downgrade would not provide a service that works in the best interests of Horton catchment patients. Patient safety and the care outcomes of mothers and babies have always been our motivation in standing up against these plans. Quite simply the JR is far too far from Banbury.
Regretfully today’s decision does not come as a great surprise. The CCG’s recent consultation into these proposals was chaotic and feels as though it was just a tick in the box exercise. Even in their own conclusions from the consultation, the CCG accepted: “There are almost universal concerns and a lack of support for the proposal to close the obstetric unit at the Horton General Hospital and replace it with a Midwife Led Unit”.
Moving forward with these proposals shows no regard for process and, more worryingly, ignores public opinion and the genuine and legitimate concerns expressed by the some 10,000 residents who responded to the consultation.
Thanks to HOSC’s intervention, there is still hope a full maternity service can be reinstated at the Horton. We urge the Secretary of State for Health to refer the matter to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, whose rulings helped to ensure the continuation of the service back in 2008. We sincerely hope that the CCG take no further action to make permanent today’s decision until the referral process has run its course.”
All plans as outlined in Phase One of the CCG’s consultation into the Oxfordshire Transformation Programme were passed today including, the creation of a single Level 3 critical care unit in Oxford, direct transfer of all stroke patients to the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit (HASU) at the John Radcliffe, changes to acute bed numbers, the creation of a state-of-the-art diagnostics centre on the Horton site to improve planned care services and the permanent establishment of a midwife-led unit in Banbury.
The last proposal is subject to a referral to the Secretary of State for Health. Today’s decision has automatically triggered that referral to Jeremy Hunt, following a decision unanimously taken by committee members at Monday’s extraordinary meeting of the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.