FOURTEEN hospital beds in Chipping Norton will no longer be managed by the NHS after the county council's cabinet approved the move.

The intermediate beds, designed to ease the transition between hospital and home, will now be run by the charity The Orders of St John Care Trust.

Members of the Chipping Norton Hospital Action Group (HAG) have long been campaigning against the move.

Chairman of Chipping Norton Town Council and member of the HAG Mike Tysoe said he was “extremely disappointed” by the decision.

He said: "We had 1,200 signatures on a petition for the NHS to carry on at the hospital.

"All that work we've done has been completely ignored by Oxfordshire County Council.

"It’s made a mockery of the entire thing."

Intermediate care, which is what the hospital currently provides, is for people who have an illness or injury that does not require them to be in an acute bed, for example in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. It also acts as a bridge between more intense care and a person returning home.

Rodney Rose of Oxfordshire County Council spoke for the move, saying: "The main reason to have 14 beds in intermediate care is for when people come out of hospital after big operations.

"But they will only remain if they are affordable. It will be an extra half million a year if they stay in NHS control. The Order of St John nurses are equally qualified and are good at the job they have been asked to do."

Keeping on the NHS nurses would cost the council £1.3million whereas having nurses from the Order of St John would cost £800,000.