PATIENTS could be stranded in Banbury when a bowel screening and endoscopy unit closes for emergency refurbishment.

That is the message from campaigners who fearing the closure of Horton General Hospital’s endoscopy unit for four months will leave patients struggling to get to services in Oxford.

Accreditation was suspended at the unit following an inspection by the national watchdog in March because of a failure to fully separate patients of different sexes, and because of its old decontamination equipment.

The Joint Advisory Group (JAG) on GI Endoscopy deferred its judgement for six months to give hospital bosses a chance to replace the outdated decontamination washers and instal better screens.

The trust’s board of directors approved £2.36m plans on July 8 to refurbish the unit with pods of three walls and curtain doors so sexes can be kept separate.

But campaigners have been left worried because an estimated 1,300 patients will have to travel to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford during the four-month refurbishment.

Keep the Horton General chairman Keith Strangwood is urging Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust to provide a shuttle bus for patients.

He said: “It’s good news and bad news.

“The good news is we are having some investment and improvements at the Horton, the bad news is more than 1,300 people are having to travel to Oxford.

“There is talk about transport but no detail.

I would like to see a shuttle bus – it would help with endoscopy transfers but other transfers too because it’s chaos to get from Banbury to Oxford.”

Work is expected to begin in September and a temporary £310,000 mobile theatre will be set up at the John Radcliffe Hospital, for non-urgent patients.

Around 85 patients a week use the unit for endoscopies and it is used for screening for bowel cancer.

While urgent cases and in-patients will be provided endoscopies in the Horton during the refurbishment, the rest will have to travel to Oxford.

Initial £4.1m plans to keep services at the Banbury hospital were deemed too expensive because of the high cost of providing temporary endoscopy services on site.

Director of planning and information Andrew Stevens insisted the changes would allow more people to be treated closer to home.

He said: “It’s really about providing a service to the local people who need it.”

Mr Stevens said although no concrete plans had been finalised, patients could be taken by shuttle bus.

He added: “The short-term issue is we are exploring options.

It could mean a minibus or talking with the ambulance service about a patient transfer unit.”