Tony Baldry MP, along with the Prime Minister David Cameron, and all those who have been involved in the ‘Keep the Horton General’ campaign celebrating on July 2nd that they have kept the Horton general.

In celebration of the people of North Oxfordshire and the surrounding area managing to retain Children’s and Maternity Service at the Horton General Hospital and keeping the Horton General, on Wednesday 30th June 2010, the ten bell ringers of St. Mary’s Church rang a Peal of 5003 Grandsire Caters.

The bells of St Mary’s Church bells will ring out across the town in a special three-hour peal to celebrate securing the future of the Horton Hospital.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I am grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing this debate on the future of services at the Horton general hospital in Banbury. This continues to be one of the most important constituency campaigns in which I have been involved during my time as a Member of Parliament. I am pleased to see in their places my constituency neighbours and hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). Their presence in the Chamber makes the point that the Horton general hospital’s catchment area, which is home to some 190,000 people, reaches well into Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.

On Wednesday 30th June, the bells of St. Mary’s Church in Banbury are going to ring out a three hour peal between 6 and 9pm, to celebrate the deliverance of the town and the surrounding area from the downgrading of services at the Horton General Hospital and to celebrate the fact that the Horton will remain a General Hospital with more consultants and enhanced services.

Champagne corks have been popping after the future of Banbury’s Horton Hospital was finally secured. Yesterday, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust agreed to pay the extra £900,000-a-year needed to pay for round-the-clock consultant-led children’s and maternity services at the Oxford Road hospital.

North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry, South Northamptonshire MP Andrea Leadsom and Stratford-upon-Avon MP Nadhim Zahawi, issued the following statement following yesterday’s decision of the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust to have consultant-delivered children’s services at the Horton, an enhanced consultant-led maternity unit and extra consultants for anaesthetics.

“It is good news” said Tony Baldry. “Andrew Lansley and Health Ministers are determined to ensure that so far as is possible it is local people who decide the future of local health services.”

At Westminster, it is clearly going to be an interesting time, supporting a coalition Government. In the interest of our country this is a coalition that all of us as MPs are going to have to ensure works on the basis of mutual respect. In practice Westminster and the House of Commons is very often much more collaborative and consensual than television footage of parts of the Parliamentary week, such as Prime Minister’s Questions might suggest.

Those concerned about the future of services at the Horton General Hospital are in for several nail-biting months. It is just over two years since the then Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, accepted the recommendations of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) that the NHS in Oxfordshire should look for a county-wide solution to retaining 24/7 Children’s Services at the Horton General Hospital and consultant-led Maternity services.