CLOSING hospital kitchens across Oxfordshire and buying in cook-chill ready meals will not save the health authority money, campaigners have said.

Protesters made the warning as they presented a petition urging the trust to change its mind, signed by 474 people, to Oxford Health NHS Trust yesterday.

And an Oxford Mail Freedom of Information request to the trust has revealed for the first time the money it hopes to save from closing community hospital kitchens at Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford and Witney – £300,000.

The figure is £27,000 less than what the trust spent on mitigating “clinical negligence” in 2013/14, less than half the £856,000 it paid its five top directors that year, and just 0.1 per cent of its total £286m operational costs.

Alex Jackson, co-ordinator of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, said: “I challenge the idea that these kitchen closures will save any public money at all.”

The campaign also hit out at the trust for not consulting with the public before taking the decision.

In its own opinion poll it found seven out of ten people opposed the plans.

Faringdon town councillor Alex Meredith said: “Opposition to the closures continues to grow and we must hope the trust will take this into consideration when deciding on the fate of the kitchens.”

Last month Raymond Blanc backed the campaign to halt the closure of community hospital kitchens.

The chef, who runs Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons at Great Milton, is one of 16 high-profile signatories of a letter to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The Oxford Mail’s Freedom of Information request also asked how many jobs were at risk from the move, but the trust refused to say.

It replied: “The changes are currently under consultation with staff and the outcome of that will be determined this month.

“It is not possible to give specific information on the effect on jobs until that process is complete. We are working to redeploy staff to other posts within the trust.”

The trust said cook-chill meals were already served at all of its mental health hospitals – Warneford, Littlemore, Whiteleaf and Cotswold House – and at community hospitals at Abingdon, Townlands, Bicester and Oxford.

And it said in its most recent patient survey in March, no one rated the food as poor, 10 per cent found it “acceptable”

and 90 per cent said it was “good or excellent”.

The trust said savings would be redirected into clinical services.