CAMPAIGNERS fighting proposed cuts to services at Banbury's Horton General Hospital have criticised the NHS trust involved for moving services without consultation.

A total of 28 beds will be moved at the Horton and 60 staff will be redeployed, the Keep The Horton General (KTHG) campaign was told last week.

From October, the beds will be moved from the hospital's F Ward to the Oak Ward to provide more short-stay and orthopaedic care.

It comes as the Oak Ward's stroke unit is planned to be moved to the medical unit on level one under plans by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Campaign chairman Keith Strangwood said he was "disgusted" the group had not been consulted before the changes were announced.

Despite attending community partnership network meetings and drop-in sessions with the trust, he said he had been given no indication the changes were to be made.

He added: "They have been so sneaky. They tell us they want to be open as far as possible and then make changes like this.

"How can they be a trust when you can't trust them? We all got told in the middle of our meeting when our phones started going off. It was very heated.

"This is quite a major change without consultation with us."

The trust's director of clinical services Paul Brennan said in a statement that "the changes are part of the continuing development of our services to provide consistent, quality care."

He added: "The proposals involve Oak Ward being reconfigured to care for orthopaedic patients and short-stay medical patients. This will include 18 beds for orthopaedic patients and 18 beds for short stay medical patients. This provides an increase in the number of medical short-stay beds from eight to 18.

"These plans enable us to provide a better integration of our general medicine and medical assessment services, and the development of ambulatory care and treatment in line with models that we have already introduced at the John Radcliffe Hospital."

Mr Brennan insisted there would be no reduction in the number of people seen at the hospital.

The campaign group were told that the F Ward would become a community hospital as a result of the changes, but the trust said although they had been asked by staff about whether it was a possibility, there had been no formal discussion on the matter.

The surprise changes are the latest shock for residents who have been fighting plans to cut services at the Horton for more than a decade.

As long ago as 2006, 3,000 people joined a march through Banbury to protest possible cuts to in-patient children's care, maternity and obstetrics, the special care baby unit, emergency operations and some laboratory services.

The hospitals trust is now launching a consultation in October about plans to move maternity consultants from the hospital, leaving only midwives, and scrap the special care baby unit, to try to save £2.2m.