MATERNITY services at Banbury’s Horton Hospital are under threat because of a planned shake-up in medical staff.

The Oxford Deanery, which oversees postgraduate medical training across the Thames Valley, plans to cut the number of middle grade doctors at the hospital from six to one.

The move, due to take place in August 2012, would leave the unit without specialists to carry out more complicated births, including caesareans.

This would mean mums with complications would have to travel to the John Radcliffe in Oxford.

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust said it was committed to retaining maternity services at the Horton.

Among options the trust is due to consider are a midwife-run unit, or a more expensive consultant-delivered centre. This is considered unlikely because it would cost an extra £1.5m a year.

The trust said paediatric services at the Oxford Road hospital were secure, with the majority of consultant posts now filled, and new doctors due to start work in January.

For more than two years, the Better Healthcare Programme, set up to retain and develop services at the Horton, has worked to keep threatened services, including maternity, emergency and children’s services.

Earlier this year health bosses agreed to plough an extra £2.4m into consultant-led children’s services after fears they could be axed.

Hospital campaigner George Parish is convinced maternity services are safe, but warned that protesters would take to the streets if they proved to be under threat.

He said: “The news came as a shock. Everyone has been working so hard to secure the Horton and suddenly we are hit by this.

“We are committed to look for a way around this.”

Mr Parish said he was convinced ORH chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael would make sure vital services were retained at the Horton.

But he added: “If the service is under threat it will mean the campaign group comes into action.

“We must have this service for the children and mums-to-be.”

ORH clinical services director Paul Brennan: “There are currently six training posts at the Horton.

“The Oxford Deanery’s training committee is proposing that the five obstetric posts are not sustainable because of the relatively small numbers of births at the Horton, but that a gynaecology middle grade training post should stay.

“The deanery will not be withdrawing the training posts for 18 months if the recommendation from the training committee is endorsed.”

He added: “Maternity services remain very much a part of our vision for the Horton.”

Michael Bannon, of the Oxford Deanery, said training posts in obstetrics and gynaecology would not be changed in the near future.

But he added: “In the longer term there will be a need to review the numbers of doctors being trained in this.

“This view is based upon likely consultant vacancies over the next five years.”

The Horton Hospital’s catchment area includes Banbury, Bicester, Chipping Norton, South Northamptonshire and South Warwickshire.