A £370 million bid to rebuild the Horton General Hospital in Banbury on its existing site has been rejected.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson made a promise of 40 new hospitals during the 2019 election campaign and in September 2021 Oxford University Hospitals Trust submitted a bid to secure funding to rebuild the Horton General on its existing site.

Last week, it was revealed the government will not consider eight remaining bids for ’40 new hospitals’ and the Horton bid was one of these.

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Keep the Horton General Group (KTHG) has said it will continue to fight for improvements to the Horton and supporters have been urged to write to shadow health secretary Wes Streeting to ask if a Labour government would be prepared to finance urgent renovations.

KTHG chairman Keith Strangwood said: “If we’re not getting that £370 million, someone's got to do something else because we've all seen what's happening.

"Every road in and out of Banbury is having more and more houses."

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Cherwell councillor and leader of the Labour group Sean Woodcock criticised the government for promising 40 new hospitals which are “over-budget, behind schedule and may be too small”.

Mr Woodcock said patients were being treated in “outdated and crumbling hospitals” and he said Banbury MP Victoria Prentis, who has long campaigned for investment in the hospital, had “serious questions” to answer.

An Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) Trust spokesperson said: “We are naturally disappointed that our bid for national funding through the New Hospitals Programme (NHP) has not been successful, given the benefits that this proposed investment would have brought for the patients and communities that we serve, and for our staff at the Horton General.

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“In partnership with our staff, our governors and the local people of Banbury and North Oxfordshire, we will continue to invest in new developments to improve further the quality of care which we provide for patients at the Horton General.

"For example, we have recently installed a new CT scanner to increase capacity for diagnostics and to ensure that more patients can be treated locally rather than having to travel to another hospital.”

Banbury MP Victoria Prentis has been approached for comment.