Bringing births back to Banbury is the only solution, says campaign after dire report on JR maternity

Bringing full childbirth facilities back to Banbury is the only solution to Oxford’s crisis in maternity services, campaigners say.

Keep the Horton General (KTHG) campaign group responded to today’s (Tuesday) shocking report on maternity services at the JR Hospital, saying they had warned ‘time and time again’ since the Horton’s maternity hospital was downgraded, that the JR would not be able to cope and mothers would suffer.

Sam Coren Murphy had to make a bed on the floor rather than sleep on her bloodied birth trolley at the JR maternity unit

placeholder image — Sam Coren Murphy had to make a bed on the floor rather than sleep on her bloodied birth trolley at the JR maternity unit

"This feels like Groundhog Day. We have warned, time and time again since 2016 when the OUH said it was going to remove obstetrics from the Horton in Banbury, that the JR would not be able to cope and mothers would suffer,” said KTHG chairman Keith Strangwood.

"Time and time again the OUH trust has insisted it is safe and a good place for mothers to give birth.

The Horton Maternity Unit, which has been a midwife only ward since 2016

“Baroness Amos’s report has vindicated every one of the points we have made - that the hospital in Headington is out of date, the staff would be too stretched and they would not be able to manage their own 5,000 births and the 2,000 births of Banbury area mothers.

"Oxfordshire is the only county with a comparable population with only one obstetric unit.

“We are sad but not surprised how awful the consequences we predicted have been - the logjams, the insanitary conditions, the stress on staff and worst of all, the traumatic consequences for mothers and babies.”

KTHG has campaigned for a decade for reinstatement of Banbury’s specialist unit. In those ten years, distressed mothers from Banburyshire have approached the group with horrendous reports of birth trauma.

In 2024, KTHG collated 50 of these stories and published them in a Birth Trauma Dossier. OUH responded by making efforts to improve the service, which had been reduced to ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission.

The JR unit was then included in Baroness Amos’s National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation. KTHG submitted 40-pages of evidence to the inquiry.

Mr Strangwood said: “It is ironic and heartbreaking to know that in 2012, the OUH was preparing to rebuild the Horton completely and actually add tertiary (specialist) services in recognition that our large community needed more services, even then.

“Within four years it had done a full 180 and took steps to remove vital services including emergency surgery and obstetrics and made childbirth in Oxfordshire so different - to the point where some mothers tell us they never dare have another baby.

"The OUH has got to change its mindset if it genuinely means to solve the issues Baroness Amos has found so awful.

“Our research shows the Horton catchment population will have doubled in the next 14 years. There is no time to lose. The solution lies not in apologies from the Trust but planning NOW to reinstate obstetrics at the Horton. There is no other way to fix the problem.

“The loss of the our obstetric unit has affected childbirth for every woman using the JR, wherever they live - not just Banbury women. They are all facing unfixable problems at the JR. And that’s a cost they cannot ask mothers to pay.”