WANTAGE Community Hospital will close indefinitely this summer after legionella bacteria was found in the hot water system, it emerged today.

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust announced this afternoon the hospital in Garston Lane will be closing and all its service re-located by early summer.

The trust stressed it was a planned closure based on safety grounds to try to permanently eradicate the risk of legionella in the hot water system.

The trust insisted there is no health risks at present and is currently using short-term treatments to tackle the problem.

But Oxford Health has not said when the hospital will fully close, nor whether it will re-open at all, despite the cash for the repairs already being set aside.

A spokeswoman stressed the decision on the hospital's future will wait until after a county-wide public consultation this autumn into the provision of bed-based and ambulatory care for older people and adults with multiple long term conditions.

She added: "Given the high cost of the works required, the trust is concerned that the future use of the building should be determined before undertaking an expensive building project which may then need to be changed as a result of the consultation."

The trust said raised levels of the legionella bacteria had been detected in the hospital's plumbing, but there was no health risks at present.

But a spokeswoman said the whole piping system for the site needed to be replaced and keeping the hospital open during the work will make it difficult to maintain a safe clinical environment.

She added: "Raised levels of legionella have been detected in the hot water system at Wantage and we have been applying effective short-term treatments to the system.

"However, because pipework at WCH is old, corroded and hot water circulation is poor, legionella will recur unless the plumbing for the whole site is replaced.

"Keeping the hospital open while work on this scale takes place would make it very difficult to maintain a safe environment and would have a detrimental impact on patient care."

The hospital currently provides 12 inpatient beds, a midwifery-led unit and musculo-skeletal physiotherapy outpatients (MSK), which the trust said will be gradually re-located to nearby sites in the coming months.

Oxford Health said patients will be given practical assistance with travel arrangements.