A HEALTH watchdog has slammed proposed cuts to healthcare services and put itself forward to deal with the aftermath.

One director at Healthwatch Oxfordshire – the body which oversees healthcare in the county – branded Oxfordshire County Council’s proposals as “draconian.”

George Smith said: “Clearly an enormous amount of pain is going to be inflicted on people over the next year. The county council made a draconian decision and clearly we need to assess whether there is excessive and unnecessary pain.”

He spoke at a Healthwatch meeting on Tuesday, at Long Furlong Community Centre in Abingdon.

The county council is set to slash services in a bid to save an extra £69m from 2016 to 2020, on top of the £292m of cuts it will have made between 2010 and 2018.

Included in the proposals is the closure of all 44 children’s centres in Oxfordshire, although the final rubberstamp will not come until a county council meeting on February 16.

Mr Smith suggested Healthwatch Oxfordshire should monitor the effects of the “whole package” of 50 cuts.

He said: “To what extent should we present ourselves as being the focal point of collecting the effects of these cuts?

“Different organisations can feed in information.”

The organisation’s chairman Eddie Duller agreed.

He said: “I feel very strongly that Healthwatch should be more proactive than it has been in the past. We have looked at things in retrospect, but there is such tremendous change going on. We want to be in there with greater presence to save some of the pain.”

He said a lot of the people affected will become “invisible”, as many people will have to resort to home healthcare.

Vice-chair Tracey Rees said cuts to other services could have a domino effect.

Healthwatch, largely funded by the council, is set to have its own budget cut by one third. Members agreed to make “one more last-ditch attempt” to argue against the cut, which will see it £100,000 poorer.

County council spokesman Paul Smith said a late change in local government funding had hit the council even harder, meaning more had to be cut than the initial £50m figure.

He added: “Councils are required by law to set a balanced budget where income and expenditure match.”

County council leader Ian Hudspeth said: “It should be remembered that this is now our sixth consecutive year of having to make cuts and by 2020 we will have completed a whole decade of savings.”