Four Oxfordshire councils have won the right to a fresh hearing over proposals to downgrade services at Horton General Hospital.
Cherwell District Council, South Northamptonshire Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Banbury Town Council have been granted the right to challenge the way the consultation was run and make the case for a full judicial review.
The councils argue the consultation by Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s (OCCG) was ‘inadequate, fundamentally flawed and confusing for people’.
In a statement, the council leaders said the two-stage consultation process ‘made the proposed changes harder to understand’.
They added: ‘That means that the findings of the consultation were skewed, and that they are not a proper basis for downgrading essential services.’
The proposed changes by OCCG include maternity, critical care and hospital bed use.