OXFORDSHIRE’S four largest hospitals will begin life today as part of the newly created Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Patients and staff walking through the doors of the John Radcliffe, the Churchill, the Nuffield Orthopaedic or Banbury’s Horton Hospitals may not detect a difference.

But chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael insisted the new trust will ultimately deliver improved healthcare for Oxfordshire patients.

The reorganisation brings together Oxford’s two hospital trusts, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust.

Sir Jonathan said: “This is not a cost cutting move.

“It has been done because both organisations recognised the advantages for patients and patient care.”

However, the merging of two trusts will bring savings in the region of £2.5m, with a number of senior management jobs set to go.

Sir Jonathan added: “The savings will be relatively limited, with some rationalisation of back room office staff.

“There used to be two boards. Now there will be one.

“There will be single finance and single human resources departments.”

Jan Fowler, the chief executive of the NOC, is now going to work with the Strategic Health Authority on secondment, while the amalgamation will leave Sir Michael as head of one of the UK’s largest teaching hospital trusts with a turnover of £750m and 11,000 staff.

The new “supertrust” will be bigger than the likes of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which employs 6,000 people with a budget of £535m, and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust with 10,000 people and a £665m budget.

Sir Jonathan said no merger is taking place with Oxford University. It is more a case of formalising a partnership between city hospitals and the university, which has roots going back 250 years.

He explained the university has been involved in the training of doctors for generations, while recent joint research and teaching programmes have brought in hundreds of millions in funding and grants.

But Sir Jonathan said: “This will be the first time that there has been a formal agreement between the trust and the university and the provision of a formal structure to the relationship.”

It is hoped the newly named trust will become a magnet for further research grants, while making Oxford hospitals more attractive to doctors and researchers from across the world.

Sir Jonathan hopes patients will be able to benefit from university-led medical breakthroughs by bringing innovations “from the laboratory bench to the bedside” more speedily.

Sir Jonathan is confident that the new trust will quickly obtain foundation trust status. With the Government wanting all hospitals to be ready to become foundation trusts by 2014, the chief executive said he expects the new trust to submit an application by the beginning of 2013, with a view to it becoming a foundation trust in the middle of 2013.