An historic deal that promises to transform local health care is to be signed by Oxford University and the county’s main hospital trust.

A legally-binding agreement is set to put the university at the centre of local NHS hospitals, holding out the promise of improvements in the quality of treatments and the recruitment of top doctors from across the globe.

The agreement is also expected to attract many millions in grants and funding for clinical research, while ensuring patients benefit more quickly from treatments and medical breakthroughs pioneered by university researchers.

It is expected that the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust will be rebranded to capitalise on its new formalised partnership with the university. The trust will be renamed, with ‘Oxford University’ likely to figure in the title of the hospital trust.

Patients have been getting the benefits of collaborations between the university and the main NHS hospitals in Oxford over many decades. But the relationship has never been formalised.

There will now be a formal structure and governance to the relationship, boosting the parties’ ability to share ideas and activities.

In a joint statement, the two organisations said they would “function as a joint venture committed to the pursuit of excellence in patient care, research and teaching”.

After entering into a joint working agreement and a trademark licence, the new university trust would “set the standard in translating science and research into new and better NHS clinical care”.

The agreement will be signed at the same time as the integration of the ORH Trust hospitals — the JR, the Churchill and the Horton in Banbury — with the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust, which will take place later in the year, with approval required from the Health Secretary.

Professor Andrew Hamilton, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, said: “These new agreements will recognise our strong mutual interests and see us extend the way we work together, with benefits for the care which patients receive now and research on the treatments they may receive in the future.

”We welcome this opportunity to strengthen our relationship with the hospitals, forming the tight links which support the best teaching of medical students, excellence in medical research and the delivery of quality healthcare.”

The new partnership will build on existing collaborations that include multi-million-pound research programmes established through the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at the ORH and at the Biomedical Research Unit in Musculoskeletal Disease at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

The agreement follows an unsuccessful attempt by Oxford’s main hospitals to form a groundbreaking US-style academic super trust with Oxford University two years ago.

Oxford had been tipped to become one of Britain’s first academic health science centres, but its bid was rejected by the then Labour Health Secretary Alan Johnson.

A panel cited the need for more thinking on management arrangements and evidence of research improving primary healthcare as reasons for rejection,