SERVICES for the elderly are to transfer from Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary to the John Radcliffe Hospital this weekend.

Tomorrow, Older People's Services are closing at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Walton Street and moving to the John Radcliffe site in Headington.

The switch paves the way for the transfer of 1,200 staff and all services at the RI to the John Radcliffe Hospital in January.

Oxford University has bought the Walton Street site. Plans for a major surgery on part of the site have yet to be approved.

Philomena Tennant, the trust's directorate manager for geratology, said: "Moving the geratology wards to the JR will greatly improve the services we are able to offer patients - for example patients will now have most of the services they require, such as the Stroke Unit, under one roof.

"The wards are initially moving to a temporary home on level seven and are planned to move in approximately nine months to a permanent home in refurbished wards on level four.

"Work on level four is scheduled to begin once the children's wards are relocated to the new Oxford Children's Hospital early next year.

"The new wards will provide additional services such as hair dressing which we know patients would really appreciate."

The Oxford Stroke Programme, based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, was recently awarded a £1.5m boost in funding, and elderly patients will benefit from the Acute Vascular Imaging Centre, to be built next to the accident and emergency department.

Services for the elderly provided at the Adams and Bedford Wards, and the Linden Unit at the Radcliffe Infirmary, will be based in Wards D, E and F on level seven in the main building on the John Radcliffe site.

In the short term, the Lionel Cosin Day Hospital will remain at the Radcliffe Infirmary and will move up to the Outpatients Department at the John Radcliffe at a later date.

Staff transferring to the John Radcliffe Hospital are being promised better bus links, and a new bus access road is due to open at the JR via Osler Road and Saxon Way in October.

Other major services at the Radcliffe Infirmary include specialist surgery, the Oxford eye hospital, plastic surgery and ear, nose and throat services.

The elderly at the RI are being moved ahead of other services to beat the pressures that build up during winter months.

Hospital managers say the move would not be practical, for example, in the middle of a flu epidemic.

The remainder of the services will be transferred in the second and third week of January.