At the meeting today, the Board of Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group confirmed the decision made in 2017 for one obstetric unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a Midwife Led Unit at the Horton General Hospital. This means women from the Banbury area requiring the support of an obstetric doctor during labour and childbirth would need to travel to Oxford or Warwick.

An important difference is that today’s decision to continue with the present arrangements has been made for the foreseeable future and is not a permanent one. OCCG together with health and care partners will regularly review population health and care needs and change services as needed.

Lou Patten, Chief Executive of OCCG said: “This decision has been a difficult one and we understand the disappointment of all those who would like to see obstetrics return to Banbury. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved throughout this lengthy process.

“We have carried out a thorough and complicated piece of work to fully understand current and future demand for maternity services and have taken into consideration all of the information gathered during the process. This includes the results of the survey about women's experiences of maternity services, information about expected population growth, workforce issues and travel and transport.

“It has been shown that the current service, provides safe, effective services for women and babies and outcomes have improved for mothers and babies over the past three years with this arrangement in place.

“If circumstances change in the future such as significant birth rate increases or demand for services is overtaking supply, the current arrangements would be reviewed.”

Note to editors:

The requirements of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel and Secretary of State have been delivered by the programme. This has been confirmed by NHS England who has given the programme their full assurance.

Relevant documents including the full Board paper and the NHSE letter of assurance is available on the OCCG website.