HISTORY OF THE HORTON GENERAL HOSPITAL
Opened in 1872 with only two wards and 12 beds for men and women, the Horton was funded by Mary Ann Horton with a bequest from her father who had made a fortune from the invention of a machine to make elastic yarn for stockings.
There is some evidence to suggest that Miss Horton was influenced in her decision to found a hospital by her doctor, CLH Pemberton, who was to become the hospital's first Honorary Physician and a member of the Committee of Management.
Miss Horton purchased an eight acre site for £3,000 and added £7,000 to build the hospital. Work had started when she died on July 19, 1869, aged 80.
Her heir was her nephew John Henry Kolle, a horse hair manufacturer of London, who assumed the name Horton. A codicil of Miss Horton's will, dated March 11, 1869, ensured that he continued with the building of the hospital. However he only survived his aunt by three months and after his death on October 11, 1869 the responsibility was taken on by his son John Henry Horton of Park House, Upper Tooting, Surrey.
The first resident house surgeon was appointed in 1926. Before this local doctors carried out all the treatments and operated a rota for emergencies. As with the cottage hospitals, the Matron was responsible for nursing, medical and domestic supervision and much of the administration. The hospital was approved as a Training School for nurses in 1926. The first consultant started work in 1945.
A children's ward was opened in 1897 and as other services grew over the years it became obvious that the hospital needed more space. In the second half of the 1930s plans were drawn up and an appeal was launched to build extensive new buildings.
The second World War and subsequent preparations for the NHS meant that the plans were never fulfilled but the new buiding did take place during and after the war. This continued in the 1950s and 1960s.
With the advent of the NHS in 1948 the Horton General Hospital became the main hospital of a group of hospitals in north Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire, administered by the Banbury and District Hospital Management Committee.
In 1974 it passed to the North Oxfordshire Sector of the Oxfordshire Health Authority (Teaching) and in 1982 became the main hospital of the Horton Unit of the Oxfordshire Health Authority. The hospital became a National Health Service Trust in April 1993 and was incorporated into the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust on April 1, 1998.
The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust merged with the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust on November 1, 2011 to create the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Paediatrics at the Horton General Hospital
Reflecting on the fight for paediatric and maternity services in 2008, it is important to describe a critical moment for the Horton General Hospital, which occurred in 1974 when a child died because of the lack of a consultant paediatric service in Banbury. The child was Ian Luckett of Bloxham. The following is an extract from a speech by Tony Baldry MP in the House of Commons from Hansard.
"Ian Luckett died in 1974 after accidentally receiving a drug overdose. His father, Donald Luckett, told how his son said: "Daddy I want to sleep. My eyes won't stay open." That was just before he was discharged from the Horton General Hospital. The next day, Ian's father was unable to wake him. Sadly he never regained consciousness and he died three days later at the Radcliffe Infirmary.
There followed three inquiries into the tragic death of Ian Luckett. Two were private, internal inquiries held by the then Oxford area health authority and the then district hospital management committee.
After considerable lobbying by the boy's family and my predecessor as MP for Banbury, Sir Neil Marten, a full public inquiry was held. It is that public inquiry, held some 30 years ago, that is relevant to the pressures facing paediatric services at the Horton Hospital today.
The public inquiry was ordered by the then (Labour) Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, Barbara Castle. Opening the inquiry the chairman said: "The reason there has been this third enquiry is because it is recognised by the Department... that there should be the fullest inquiry to ensure such a thing does not happen again.
I repeat that the aim was to ensure that 'such a thing' did not happen again
The evidence that the Luckett inquiry heard reinforced the need for an enhanced paediatric department and for more trained paediatric staff at the Horton General Hospital. Dr Douglas Pickering, the consultant paediatrician at the Radcliffe Infirmary, was reported by the Banbury Guardian of June 6, 1974, to have explained to the inquiry that he 'would like to see doctors at the Horton rotate at the Radcliffe for paediatric experience'.
Local people want that rotation to be available today. When I read the evidence to the Luckett inquiry, some 30 years after it was held, I was struck by how strong was the message that the Horton General Hospital needed experienced paediatricians and comprehensive paediatric care, not least because of the distance to other hospitals in Oxford.
What did the inquiry find? The Luckett report began by observing that 'nursing and medical staff are devoted, but severely stretched' and I suggest that the same is true today, particularly among paediatricians. It recommended that 'junior medical staff might be rotated' and that recommendation is equally relevant today. It stressed that 'only severely ill children, fit to travel, should be admitted directly to Oxford hospitals'.
In other words as many children as possible should be treated in Banbury
My predecessor, Sir Neil Marten, rightly concluded that the Luckett inquiry 'highlights a number of matters that must be put right immediately. Nothing like this must ever be allowed to happen again'. There is now a danger that it may happen again.
Shortly afterwards, a number of paediatric consultants including Dr Bob Bell, were appointed at Horton General Hospital and no sick children had to travel to Oxford hospitals. In future, sick children will almost certainly have to travel to Oxford hospitals by night, when by definition, it will be an emergency, if 24-hours-a-day, seven-days a week paediatric care is withdrawn from the Horton.”
Public Appeals Fund Facilities at the Horton
The Banburyshire public has always shown full and lasting support for the Horton General Hospital, wanting it to continue as an acute district general hospital where they can expect treatment for any routine health emergency, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
In support of their local acute hospital they have dug deep into their own pockets and repeatedly responded to public appeals and have funded the current Accident and Emergency department, the current paediatric ward, the Brodey cancer centre, countless incubators and equipment for the special care baby unit and - in its day - the first state-of-the-art CT scanner in the south Midlands.
To recap: Cherwell is forecast to grow by 16% between 2011 and 2026.
Banbury faces a housing increase of 23,000 homes. Bicester census in 2011 had 30,854 residents and housing was to be increased by 5,000+ until an announcement it would be a 'garden city' with a further 13,000 homes.
This district must continue to be able to rely on its district general hospital, the Horton.