Furious row has broken out over plans to cut the hours of an accident clinic at Witney to help Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital meet Government targets.

The Witney Minor Injuries Unit is to shut down at 6pm each evening, instead of 11pm, so that nursing staff can be moved to the Oxford hospital's beleaguered Accident and Emergency department.

One senior member of staff is understood to have resigned over the decision.

Witney MP David Cameron has called the move "quite wrong" and West Oxfordshire district councillors are pledging to fight the cut.

Cabinet leader Barry Norton said: "This is crazy. The unit provides health care for local people - 9,000 patients last year - with just a nurse, nursing assistant and radiographer.

"People will now have to travel to Oxford if they need care in the evenings."

The issue has been listed an emergency item on the council's cabinet agenda for December 17.

Labour group leader Ted Cooper said: "What is the benefit? You are just shifting someone who is injured in Witney to Oxford. It's the same workload.

"It is absolutely ridiculous. The health authority is supposed to be working in partnership with local authorities and primary care trusts. This is no sort of partnership."

The Minor Injuries Unit, based at the town's community hospital, was set up in 1999 as a satellite service of the JR's A&E department.

Its purpose was to provide local treatment for minor injuries and burns, plus X-ray facilities, to take the strain off the JR and save people long trips and long waits.