The Horton General Hospital is a

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

hospital located on the Oxford Road, in the Calthorpe ward of

Banbury Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census. Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshire ...

. It is managed by

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is an English teaching hospital and part of the Shelford Group. It is one of the UK's largest teaching hospitals and one of the largest hospitals in Europe. The trust is made up of four hospitals ...

History

Pre-1948

The earliest part of the hospital is the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

Elms House on Oxford Road, a substantial villa built in 1863 for Jonathan Gillet, one of the senior partners of Gillet’s Bank. The main part of the hospital was founded as a result of a gift from Mary-Ann Horton, a local heiress. It was designed by the architect

Charles Henry Driver Charles Henry Driver FRIBA (23 March 1832 – 27 October 1900) was a significant British architect of the Victorian era, with a reputation for pioneering use of ornamental iron work for which he was seen as a leading authority. Biography Driver ...

and built by Franklin and Sons of

Deddington Deddington is a civil parish and small town in Oxfordshire about south of Banbury. The parish includes two hamlets: Clifton and Hempton. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,146. Deddington is a small settlement but has a co ...

. Construction work had started on 19 July 1869 and it opened in 1872. CLH Pemberton became the hospital's first Honorary Physician and a member of the Committee of Management in 1872. A children's ward was added in 1897. 1926 was a momentous year with both the first resident house surgeon being appointed and the hospital being approved as a training school for nurses that year. In the second half of the 1930s, plans were prepared to construct extensive new buildings: these buildings were erected in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

1948-1999

The first consultant started work at the hospital in 1945. The hospital became part of the

in 1948. The Italianate Elms House on Oxford Road became the local psychiatric unit in 1961. The hospital became a National Health Service Trust in April 1993.

2000 and later

In 2005, there were rumours that the hospital might have to close. This led Banbury's MP,

Tony Baldry Sir Antony Brian Baldry, (born 10 July 1950) is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banbury from 1983 to 2015. Early life Born in 1950, Baldry was educated at Leighton Park School, a Quaker school, ...

, plus a large proportion of the town's population, to start a campaign to keep the hospital open. The rumours proved to be unfounded, since the plans had already been abandoned by both the

NHS Trust An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...

and the

Health Minister A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Count ...

. In 2006, the Horton attracted publicity because

Benjamin Geen Benjamin Geen is a double murderer who killed two patients and committed grievous bodily harm against 15 others while working as a nurse at Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire in 2003 and 2004. Geen was believed to be motivated by h ...

, a nurse employed there, was convicted of two murders and fifteen counts of

grievous bodily harm Grievous bodily harm (often abbreviated to GBH) is a term used in English criminal law to describe the severest forms of battery. It refers to two offences that are created by sections 18 and 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The ...

in April of that year. During December 2003 and January 2004 he had allegedly poisoned patients because he got a thrill out of trying to resuscitate them. Oxfordshire

Clinical Commissioning Group Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) were NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in each of their local areas in England. On 1 July 2022 they were abolished and replaced by Integra ...

approved controversial plans to permanently downgrade the hospital’s maternity service to a midwife-led only unit in August 2017, but the

Independent Reconfiguration panel The Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) is the independent expert on National Health Service (NHS) service change in England. Set up in 2003, the IRP advises the Secretary of State for Health on contested proposals for health service change in ...

recommended in March 2018 that “further action was required locally before a final decision is made about the future of maternity services in Oxfordshire”.

References

External links

*
Inspection reports
from the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. I ...

{{authority control Houses completed in 1863 Hospitals established in 1872 Organisations based in Oxfordshire Hospitals in Oxfordshire 1872 establishments in England NHS hospitals in England