TORY leader David Cameron has joined the battle to save Banbury's Horton Hospital by promising to tackle Tony Blair over NHS funding.

Witney MP Mr Cameron visited the Horton on Friday with Banbury MP Tony Baldry and Daventry MP Tim Boswell to meet hospital management and staff.

They discussed the effect of proposed cutbacks at the hospital announced last week by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which controls the Horton.

The trust is trying to wipe out a £33m overspend by reducing services at the Horton including closing the special care baby unit, cutting back on children's treatment and maternity, obstetrics, out-of-hours emergency care, and microbiology.

Mr Cameron said: "We have a popular and successful hospital that is having to make cuts due to national funding policies.

"The consequences are serious. We have just heard cleaners saying they no longer have time to do their job properly, and midwives say they are worried about the maternity unit if consultants are not there for difficult births.

"We need to get back to Westminster to tell the Prime Minister this just isn't good enough.

"The national formula for NHS funding is not working, and Oxfordshire is being disadvantaged. The Government must look at that."

Mr Baldry said: "Cleaners have told us their hours are being more than halved, and that where they once had seven hours to do a job, they now have three and it can't be done. Cleanliness at the hospital is being substantially threatened."

Mr Baldry said midwives had expressed concerns about the maternity unit.

He said: "Around 1,600 babies are born in Banbury every year, but under the new system the number will drop to around 500. Large numbers of mothers will be forced to have their babies in Oxford, whether they want to or not.

"Gynaecological services will disappear altogether from the Horton.

"We as MPs will do all we can at Westminster to get this unfair NHS funding formula changed."

Tim Boswell, MP for Daventry, who lives at Aynho, said: "At least 25,000 of my constituents look to Banbury for health treatment, as I do. Both of my children were born at the Horton, so I feel strongly about what is happening, both as an MP and a father.

"I will work to get the very best outcome for health provision in this area, and to secure a future for the Horton Hospital."

Mike Fleming, manager at the Horton, said: "It was important that the staff could put their views to the MPs. It is right that in a period of consultation that people can air their concerns, discuss them with local MPs, and amongst themselves."

The MPs are organising a countywide Petition to Parliament calling on the Government to fairly fund Oxfordshire's NHS.

At the moment Oxfordshire's population gets over £100 less per person than the national average.

Last week, Mr Baldry said: "The debt crippling this county's health service could be wiped out if Oxfordshire's NHS was funded at the national average.

"The Government's own figures reveal that Oxfordshire receives the lowest funding per patient in the whole country." He said Mr Blair's Sedgefield constituency was funded above the national average by almost the same amount that Oxfordshire was underfunded.