PATIENTS and members of the public will be given a say on the possible closures of three community hospitals in Watlington, Wallingford and Burford.

The Oxfordshire Community Health Trust needs to shave £1.5m off its budget over the next four years and agreed to send two different money-saving schemes to public consultation at an extraordinary meeting held yesterday.

Both schemes involve the closure of the 11-bed community hospital at Burford and providing new buildings at Bicester hospital.

One scheme would see the closure of Wallingford hospital while implementing the other would mean Watlington hospital is shut.

Beds would also be closed at hospitals in Abingdon, Wantage, Witney and Chipping Norton under both schemes.

Trust chief executive Jill Rodney told the meeting, which was attended by about 150 protesters, including members of Age Concern, hospital Leagues of Friends and Wallingford Mayor Pat Granados, that it had looked at 16 schemes during a nine-month consultancy period to try to find a way to meet the shortfall.

One included closing beds at all the trust's 11 community hospitals, which she said would cut its number of beds by a quarter, would not help provide a fair service to everyone in the county and could mean unplanned hospital closures later on.

Ms Rodney added: "We know that if the two options go forward we would expect there to be local pressures and we do expect to take into account patients, relatives and carers. "We don't believe that taking £1.5m is easy to do.

"I can't take that amount of money out of the system without it affecting patient care," she said.

The £1.5m shortfall arose after the trust agreed to provide community healthcare services for Oxfordshire Health Authority over the next four years, but was forced to make the cuts to meet efficiency levels set by the Government.

The authority's board met at another extraordinary open meeting straight after the trust and agreed to three-month public consultation period for both plans.

But nothing will happen until a consultation document outlining the proposals is produced.

Health authority board chairman Peter Iredale said: "We must get to the consultation period soon and will do so, but not until we have seen the document."

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