SEVEN doctors are now ready to get to work at a Banbury hospital where obstetric-led maternity services have been frozen since last October.

Maternity at the Horton General Hospital was downgraded to midwife-led last year due to a lack of doctors in post.

An update on the situation is to be discussed today by the board of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at a meeting in the Churchill Hospital.

In the report, clinical services director Paul Brennan said: “Consistent with the board’s original decision that it was unsafe to continue the service without being able to sustain a rota of nine middle-grade doctors, obstetric services remain temporarily suspended.

“The temporary establishment of the MLU [midwife-led unit] continues.”

A further advert for the final two vacancies has been publicised online by OUH with a closing date at the end of July.

Since the downgrade, expectant mothers deemed ‘high-risk’, or those who develop complications during labour, have had to make the journey to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to give birth.

The Horton lost its training accreditation with the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2013 due to the low number of births taking place there, making it harder to attract new doctors.

Last week Banbury MP Victoria Prentis spoke to health secretary Jeremy Hunt about training accreditation and the ‘domino effect’ on local services during Health Questions in the House of Commons.

She said: “The loss of training accreditation for obstetricians in Banbury has had a detrimental impact on maternity services in the area. It is vital that the same does not happen to A&E.”