Pledge on hospital maternity care

Consultants have said they will provide emergency cover if agencies fail to

Children's and maternity services will remain at Banbury's Horton Hospital for as long as it takes to secure their future, the chief executive has said.

The Oxford Radcliffe Trust was ordered to keep full services in place for two years, while efforts were made to overcome major staffing pressures.

Chief Executive Trevor Campbell Davies said they would continue beyond the deadline of March next year.

But he said staff needed to know there was a solution in sight.

Mr Campbell Davies made the commitment at a meeting of the Community Partnership Forum in Banbury.

Staff on the children's ward at the Horton have been stretched because of "major" staffing problems.

The hospital is having to rely heavily on temporary locum doctors to provide emergency cover overnight and at weekends.

Campaigners feared that after March 2010, the Oxford Radcliffe Trust would revert to the plan to move overnight paediatric and maternity services to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.