NHS managers have saved a bus service which takes patients to two Oxford hospitals.

The number 12 from Peartree to the John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals in Headington was threatened after Oxford Brookes University stopped subsidising it because of a funding crisis.

Now the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust has agreed to plough around 2,000 into the route and help share the cost with the county council.

The hourly service will continue the end of December.

The trust's transport strategy officer, David Edwards, said: What happens then will be partly determined by a Headington transport study being carried out by the county and city councils.

We thought that, although the service hasn't been used as well as we would have hoped, closing it down would send out all the wrong messages for our transport strategy.