Patient care will not be affected by a decision to stop Oxford's district nurse night service, NHS managers have claimed.

NHS managers have been forced to cancel the 10pm to 6am shift because of a lack of staff.

They claim arrangements have been made for infirm people who rely on nurses to visit them during the night.

One to two people call out district nurses during the shift, for help with dressings, catheters and other problems.

Oxford City Primary Care Trust (PCT) has made arrangements for them to receive help from other medical staff or from their GPs.

They are also trying to recruit new nurses to join the ten-strong twilight shift team.

PCT chief executive Andrea Young said: "This won't affect their access to an out-of-hours GP service in the usual way.

"What has happened in the past is that if a GP is called out, they will refer a patient to a nurse if they think it's necessary, but they can't do that now and will have to deal with the situation themselves.

"We need to get new recruits and what we have done in the meantime is to extend the evening service, which usually ends at 10pm, to midnight.

"The reality is that when we looked at the figures, the staff were only on call for one patient a night on average and what we have done is given regular patients priority first thing in the morning."

Mrs Young said the PCT had set a three-month deadline to enlist new staff and would then re-launch the night service. She said £224,000 had been put aside for the services.