PATIENTS are well on the road to recovery thanks to a new community hospital unit that health bosses said was the best in Oxfordshire.

Oxford Community Hospital re-opened as City Community Hospital on Monday on the seventh floor of the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Yesterday the Oxford Mail was given a guided tour of the facility.

It has replaced Oxcomm, the old 26-bed unit at the Churchill Hospital, which closed in May last year after an outbreak of superbug clostridium difficile.

For the past 15 months, patients living in Oxford have had to go to one of eight other community hospitals dotted around the county to continue their recovery.

The £250,000 20-bed unit, which provides rehabilitation for people after major surgery or treatment, is only temporary.

A permanent unit will open two floors down next summer.

Cancer patient Ruby Barham, 85, of Headington, has been in hospital for 12 weeks.

The great-grandmother of five said: “I haven’t been able to stand up for four weeks. Yesterday I stood up to go to the toilet with two nurses, that was my first therapy. It was a milestone for me.

“I had been in the old ward before it was done up and I was expecting it to be old fashioned, but it’s very nice, it’s very upgraded. The staff are very nice and the food is good.”

Susan Hall, 90, from Wolvercote, is recovering from a fractured pelvis.

She said: “The atmosphere is very warming and it fits with my expectations.

“I was fed and accommodated as professionals would do it.”

Ward manager Paul Irving will soon have seven more staff to join his team of 25 nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

He said: “I’m the luckiest manager of a community hospital in the county because I’ve got everything brand new.

“If patients have got appointments they only have to go halfway down in the lift and they are back.

“We’ve got better access to facilities than any other hospital in the county.

“The patients are all very pleased about not being sent to Abingdon or Witney and other community hospitals because they can have the treatment closer to home.”

Auxiliary nurse Canday Kamali said: “The rooms are big, which helps us using hoists and chairs. I’m much happier working here.”