THE chief of Oxfordshire’s hospitals last night insisted its problems treating cancer patients on time and having enough staff were being fixed.

Sir Jonathan Michael believed the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust would be able to continue to improve despite facing another £47m in cuts next year.

After the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found the ORH was failing in four categories last week, Sir Jonathan revealed the organisation was putting its house in order.

The trust, which runs the John Radcliffe, Churchill and Horton hospitals, was given 28 days to come up with a plan of action and has already unveiled a number of changes, including: * Key midwife vacancies were being filled * Nursing posts emergency surgery were being filled * 30 new operating sessions to help hit the 18 week waiting time for surgery * Two consultants in obstetrics and gynaecology had been recruited Despite the cuts in the next financial year Sir Jonathan insisted patients would always come first.

He said: “We are absolutely committed to providing high quality care, safe services, minimising risk and maximising safety.

“And although we are not perfect, and I don’t think any hospital is, we are well on our way to delivering that reliably and regularly.

“We are not there yet, but in terms of our services for patients I’m confident I can reassure Oxford Mail readers and patients across the county we can provide safe and high quality services.”

On Friday, the Oxford Mail revealed how the trust was failing in four out of 16 care standards.

The CQC highlighted a “worrying” lack of staff, cancer patients waiting too long for treatment and bed blocking by patients well enough to return to their homes.

He added: “The trusts’ 10,000 members of staff are totally committed to the wellbeing and care of our patients.

“We are committed to being transparent about the way services are run, and when things don’t work as well as we expected, that we react.

“As an organisation we are putting in a number of structures to become more responsive to individual patients’ needs.”

Since the trust was visited by the CQC, a number of measures have already been put in place to make up for the service shortfall.

Across all hospitals an extra 60 staff have been employed in a range of departments. Last night the trust said it had filled the two consultant vacancies in obstetrics and gynaecology.

It explained how it was well on the way towards filling the 10 nursing vacancies in the surgical emergency unit.

The trust also said 14 midwives had been recruited.

In the maternity wards, just two posts remained unfilled, but were being advertised.

The trust had already planned a scheme which put clinicians in charge of their own departments, effectively removing a layer of management and saving money, which began in November.

The 10,000 staff employed by the ORH includes 5,710 clinical staff, including nurses and midwives, and 4,220 non clinical staff, including administration staff and healthcare assistants.