This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Labour’s Sean Woodcock challenges MP Victoria Prentis to defend hospital funding bid rejection
24/07/2023
“I think the people in Banbury are going to be massively disappointed and … asking questions of our local Member of Parliament”
The leader of the Labour group at Cherwell District Council has described the news that the Horton General Hospital has missed out on £370m of government funding as “massively disappointing”.
Sean Woodcock has challenged Banbury’s MP Conservative Victoria Prentis to defend the decision. Mrs Prentis previously said the Horton remained her top priority and she was “determined to see the hospital get the investment it needs to ensure it can continue to serve our growing town.”
He said: “I think the people in Banbury are going to be massively disappointed and I think they are going to be asking questions of our local Member of Parliament, Victoria Prentis, who has made great claims about her love for the Horton Hospital – about how she’ll defend it and how she wants to see it improve. As a senior member of the Government it’s only fair to ask – put your money where your mouth is. It’s all words and no action as far as I’m concerned from Victoria Prentis.”
Councillor Woodcock, like others, had been hoping money from the government’s New Hospital Programme would have enabled a £370m major investment in new buildings at the Oxford Road site.
He said: “Obviously the Horton has already lost consultant lead maternity. One of the things that people in Banbury were hoping would come out of that was that maybe we would get some more investment in other parts of services. Clearly this massive chance of capital is not going to happen which means that patients who rely on the Horton are going to be no better off – in fact we’re worse off.
“It doesn’t surprise me. The conservatives have done this across the country where they promised 40 new hospitals. We know that they’re over budget and behind schedule. Many of them are not actually new, many of them are not actually hospitals and there aren’t 40 of them. So it doesn’t surprise me, but it’s still pretty shocking for the people of Banbury that we’re having to put up with this.”
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam