BICESTER residents turned out in force to show health chiefs it was time to give the town a new community hospital after 30 years of waiting.

More than 300 people filled a crunch public meeting at Bicester and Ploughley Sports Centre on Tuesday .

Speaker after speaker asked for guarantees and though no assurances were given the panel appointed to make the difficult decisions said the message was very clear.

Oxfordshire Community Health NHS Trust has been forced to make savings of £1.5m by 2001.

It could mean the closure of up to two community hospitals in the south of the county which has 240 more community beds than in the north.

Bicester on the other hand would get a new 30-bed hospital under the proposals which are out for public consultation until July 4.

A larger hospital would balance out the current distribution which only gives 60 per cent of the county's 600,000 residents access to a community hospital.

The audience heard speeches from Oxfordshire Health Authority chief executive Michael Taylor and Oxfordshire Community Health NHS Trust chief executive Jill Rodney.

Both talked about the 'painful and difficult choices' that would have to be made in the coming months.

Mr Taylor told the meeting that the health authority's £235m budget was the second lowest in the country.

He said: "This is a nettle that has had to be grasped for a long time. Privately GPs in the south realise that the distribution of beds has to be improved."

Ms Rodney said the panel had looked at cutting complete services but concluded it would have been more damaging than reducing beds.

Bicester GP Richard Stephenson said he had arrived in the town in 1969 and the health authority had been promising a new hospital then.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.