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Statement on obstetric services at the John Radcliffe and the Horton General Hospital

26/09/2019
This article is more than four years old.

Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) considered a paper on the future of obstetrics in Oxfordshire at their Board meeting today, Thursday 26 September 2019. The papers for that Board meeting can be found here.

The Board has decided to confirm their earlier decision to support a one obstetric unit model at this stage, but with a number of additional steps to improve the patient experience following the patient feedback that we had as part of this process.

The Trust's Chief Medical Officer Professor Meghana Pandit addressed the OCCG Board to outline the Trust's response to the two options that were worked up by OCCG and OUH with the Horton Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC).

The Trust looked very carefully at both options that were put forward and gave its views on how they could be implemented.

Professor Meghana Pandit said: "This has been a very lengthy process, during which there has been a lot of uncertainty for women planning their births as well as for our staff.

"I would like to thank all the women who gave us their feedback on their birth experiences, as well as our staff who have worked so hard to look at different ways of working. We are taking forward a number of recommendations from this process to improve women's experiences of our services."

Dr Bruno Holthof, Chief Executive Officer at Oxford University Hospitals, said: "The Horton is a hugely important part of Oxford University Hospitals. We share local people's desire to see services expand there and are keen to improve or rebuild facilities for urgent and emergency care, diagnostics and outpatients, theatres and wards.

We want to invest in the future of the Horton - working with the local community. We will build in flexibility to our plans so that an obstetric unit could be opened in the future at the Horton if the circumstances demand.

"We are keen to press ahead with developing a masterplan for the Horton site and to make a compelling business case to government for significant capital investment in the Horton. We hope we will have the community's support and engagement in doing that."