Campaigners have won their fight for a new community hospital serving Oxford.

But news that it is to be created within the John Radcliffe Hospital has dampened celebrations, amid claims that there will not be enough beds to meet the needs of the city’s elderly population.

The plan to create a £3m community hospital on level five of the JR has also sparked fears that the new hospital will have no separate identity, and will be quickly swallowed up by the main hospital.

The search for a new community hospital began with the closure of the old community hospital on the Churchill site in May last year, after a series of outbreaks of the bacteria clostridium difficile.

An independent investigation blamed poor management and inadequate monitoring.

A temporary community hospital will open on level seven at the JR, from October, with 20 beds available for community rehabilitation. Next summer a permanent 20-bed unit will open, taking up about half of level five.

East Oxford county councillor Larry Sanders said the number of beds would be inadequate.

But Alan Webb, Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust’s director of service redesign, said: “We are confident 20 beds will provide an appropriate level of service. Patients will benefit from clinicians, back-up and support facilities at the JR. ”