Cherwell has agreed a plan to build 23,000 new homes by 2031 – that is population growth of nearly 70,000. We have a wonderful district general hospital – the Horton General Hospital – whose acute services and maternity unit, under Simon Stevens’ ideas published this week, would be in danger of becoming a downgraded, outpatient satellite of Oxford.

Stevens calls for ‘review’ of maternity units delivering less than 4,000 babies and the Horton is approaching half that.

Are we to need another massive public fight for our essential hospital services for this exploding population?

The Independent Reconfiguration Panel, in 2006, accepted GPs’ opinion that to send sick children or mothers in labour 26 miles to Oxford would be ‘unsafe and inhumane’, a phrase repeated by politicians who now have the future of our services in their hands.

Today’s letters

It is senseless to withhold the 4 per cent pa ‘standing still’ increase the NHS needs and to pass the cost of accessing distant hospital care to individuals already paying for it through taxes.

Huge savings can be made to pay for this necessary financial support by ending the costly purchaser/provider system, the expense of policing privatisation of profitable NHS services and renegotiating bankrupting PFI commitments. The National Health Action Party has shown the NHS has been chronically underfunded compared to other developed countries.

Other key issues are wasteful internal markets, damaging physical and mental health impacts of austerity and a failure to deal with issues such as tax evasion.

Healthcare spending actually helps stimulate economic growth. Investment in the NHS will help fuel the economy and address wealth and health inequality.

Roseanne Edwards, National Health Action Party, PPC Banbury

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