PLANS by Oxford hospital bosses to remove women's and children's services from the Horton Hospital to the John Radcliffe site were not in patients' interests, the chairman of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel said today.
Dr Peter Barrett, a former GP and leader of the 11-strong panel of medics, administrators and lay people spent three months looking at all sides of the downgrading plans, said he hoped things would move rapidlly now to make the Horton a people's hosp
ital for the 21st century.
"We were unanimous in our decision. We had a very long and detailed discussion at our final meeting to tease out what everyone in the panel wanted," he said.
"Our recommendations are pretty explicit; our focus is on patient care. We have said clear vision is needed for children's and maternity serices, and the primary care trust must produce a timeline for a programme with the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust to work towards providing an integrated service between Oxford and Banbury.
"We have told them this process must fully involve local stakeholders and patients which it did not before in our view.
"We didn't think the ORH had it right," added Mr Barrett, who is also chairman of the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
"They had a particular view on how they could provide services. They quoted people who had been transferred from other midwifery-led units such as Wantage, basing their claims on people who were already travelling distances (to the JR) and of course they were getting good, safe services when they got there.
"But we were worried about accessibility; 23 miles is 23-miles and it takes a certain amount of time to transfer, adding time to get patients into an ambulance and for them to reach services at the other end.
"It seemed a big problem and we couldn't accept that the trust's proposals would be in the best interests of people locally."
