LOCAL MP TELLS PANEL OF INADEQUATE AMBULANCE TRANSFER TIMES

Tony Baldry says service closures at the Horton would remove patient choice

North Oxfordshire MP, Tony Baldry, has told the Independent Reconfiguration Panel that service closures to full time maternity and A&E services at the Horton would remove patient choice.

In a letter to Dr. Peter Barrett, chair of the panel, Tony outlined how the proposed changes contradict the idea of a patient-led NHS recently outlined by the Prime Minister, with a wider range of services patients could choose.  Instead under current proposals, Banbury would see the removal of services, not a wider range of choice.

Tony also outlined concerns over the response time of ambulance, including new figures that show 35 per cent of urgent calls took an average of 258 minutes for an ambulance to actually arrive at the Horton to transfer patients to the John Radcliffe.  Tony Baldry urged the panel to consider transfer times as part of its inquiry, given the emphasis placed in the proposals on transferring mothers in labour.

Tony Baldry MP said:

"It is simply not safe to rely on ambulance transfers to Oxford when a third of calls would take hours for the ambulance to actually arrive at the Horton.  It is absurd to expect one in three mothers in labour to wait hours to be taken from Banbury to Oxford.  For this reason alone, the IRP should reject the proposals."

"It is also difficult to see an agenda of 'patient power' and  greater choice can in any way be reconcilable with service changes which, if they went ahead, would substantially reduce choice for thousands upon thousands of our constituents, prevent them from exercising choice and service changes which completely ignore their wishes and preferences for service configuration."