PHYSIOTHERAPY services at Wantage and Abingdon could have been saved if the NHS trust which owns the town's hospitals had not refused to offer the space originally.

Healthshare, which took over running the countywide physio service this month, has revealed Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust initially refused to even discuss letting the company use the sites.

Company director Neil Cook said the trust only offered the use of those two sites seven days before the new contract was due to start, nowhere near enough time to get a service up and running.

Mr Cook said he was disappointed that his company was not now able to offer physio at Wantage and Abingdon and shared his sympathy with patients who now have to travel out of town.

Mr Cook said: "If Oxford Health had offered us Wantage hospital originally we would be there now.

"We were very keen to use that site, but right from the start we were told under no circumstances would that space be made available.

"They did offer four weeks on those sites as a transitional arrangement but there is just no point in us doing four weeks then leaving."

The contract for physiotherapy services is awarded by Oxfordshire's Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG), the board of county GPs which commissions (purchases) all NHS services for Oxfordshire.

This year, OCCG decided to award the contract for physiotherapy to Healthshare, a private health company which exclusively runs services for the NHS.

But Mr Cook said that when his company went to Oxford Health to negotiate use of the sites where it was already running physio, the trust refused to discuss letting it carry on running the service at Wantage and Abingdon.

Then, Mr Cook said, following what he understood was pressure from the county's health watchdog Healthwatch, Oxford Health came back to Healthshare a week before the company was due to start running the service and offered the use of Wantage.

Mr Cook said it would have been impossible to set up a service at Wantage at such short notice.

Instead, Healthshare is now running physio at White Horse Medical Practice in Faringdon, Woodlands Practice in Didcot, Wallingford Community Hospital and Townlands Hospital in Henley.

Asked whether Healthshare might be able to consider offering physio at Wantage in the future, Mr Cook said he would like to, but extending the service would require more financial support from OCCG.

Oxford Health said it assessed each of Healthshare's requests to use its site 'against other demands on the estate'.

At Abingdon and Witney the trust said it faced 'significant space pressures' and decided space at those hospitals 'could be put to better use supporting other patient services'.

Regarding Wantage the trust said it had been concerned about the risk of a legionella outbreak due to old pipework that needs replacing, but admitted it had then offered Healthshare the use of the site anyway. The trust did not explain why it changed its mind.