Oxford MP's planned £120m maternity unit 'should be built in Banbury'

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran released a statement today (Tuesday) calling on the Government to invest £120m in a new maternity unit to replace the JR Hospital birth centre at the heart of a national inquiry this year.

But Keep the Horton General (KTHG) campaign group, which has been working to bring full maternity services back to Banbury, says it could not be accommodated at the JR and should be built on the Horton site in Banbury.

Mrs Moran made the case for funding for a new Oxford maternity unit in a health debate in Parliament, saying there was ‘only so much’ the Oxford University Hospitals Trust could do to improve maternity services without a new building.

“This relic of a building is no longer fit for purpose. There is only so far improvement can go without the right facilities,” she said.

“To protect privacy and dignity, support safer care and meet future demand, the JR needs a new maternity wing. Today I called for the Government to properly fund the capital investment in our national maternity infrastructure.”

Charlotte Bird, deputy chair of KTHG, said: “Where on earth would they put it? It needs to be twice the size to accommodate all the numbers and they have run out of space. They have no parking as it is.

"We haven’t run out of space in Banbury.

“They find it hard enough recruiting to a unit delivering far more babies than any European obstetric unit would. The work pressures are too great. This would double the problem.

"Oxfordshire is the only county of its size (760,000) which only has one obstetric unit. Putting a bigger unit in Oxford does not cure the problem.

“It needs to be in Banbury where, within 14 years, there is going to be a catchment population of 405,000. That is nearly half of what the whole of the JR’s catchment population will be.

"Layla Moran is thinking only of Oxford, as usual. What about the tens of thousands who have to make intolerable journeys to and from the JR for services that should be local.

"We support a new obstetric unit but it should be in Banbury. Layla Moran represents her own constituents – she is not working for Banburyshire or any other part of the county than her own.

"The JR maternity unit was designed to deliver 5,000 babies and that’s what it should stick to. The rest are from the north of the county anyway.”

The Horton’s obstetric unit was downgraded in 2016, moving 2,000 births from Banburyshire to the JR.

The National Amos Report into the maternity crisis at the JR described the OUH maternity centre as ‘cold, small and cramped’, while a recent inspection by the Care Quality Commission said that the centre was ‘no longer large enough for current demand’.

Baroness Amos singled out the Oxford maternity unit as possibly ‘the worst’ building she had seen in her national investigation into maternity and neonatal care.

The 1972 Women’s Centre was designed for 5000 births per year. It now handles 40% more than that, while the complexity of maternity care has increased, placing greater pressure on facilities.