GOVERNMENT ministers have refused to discuss the future of Bicester Community Hospital with the town's MP, Tony Baldry, following a recent public meeting.

Mr Baldry said it was the first time in his 25 years at Westminster that he could remember ministers turning down a request for a meeting.

The Tory MP had promised to take a cross-party delegation of local people to Whitehall to ask why the Government had failed to deliver the 30-bed hospital they promised Bicester in 1998.

But he said health minister Ben Bradshaw told him neither he nor his colleague Dawn Primorolo could make any meeting "due to diary commitments".

Mr Baldry said: "It is extremely disappointing that health ministers, who made a clear commitment to support a new community hospital at Bicester almost a decade ago, are unwilling to explain face-to-face to an all party delegation why the Government has failed to deliver that commitment.

"I think this is the first time in 25 years of being in Parliament that ministers have said they were unwilling to meet a delegation.

"I think it's because they are seriously embarrassed because a commitment has been made and not been honoured.

"I will continue to raise the issue in the House of Commons by means of questions."

Mr Baldry added he had secured a 90-minute debate on Wednesday, October 10, and vowed to raise the issue then. Bicester was promised a new 30-bed hospital by the Government in 1998 but the money was never ring-fenced.

Now the newly-merged Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust is looking at replacing the town's ageing 12-bed hospital with a primary care centre, where beds would be rented from local care homes.

At a public meeting in Garth House last month, Mr Baldry told the 100-strong audience he had used the Freedom of Information Act to discover former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt had pressed the PCT to build a bedless care centre.

He promised members of the audience he would ask ministers for a meeting to try to resolve the issue.

Les Sibley, leader of the Save Our Community Hospital campaign, said: "The Government is not necessarily refusing to meet with Mr Baldry, they are just saying due to diary commitments, they can't at the moment.

"What we should be doing, and what Mr Baldry should be doing, is arranging a visit to meet the chief executives of both the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust and Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority - who are the ultimate decision makers.

"If Mr Baldry comes on board, gets behind my campaign to get the community hospital, and stops playing political games and blaming the Government, I would be more than willing to arrange a meeting for both of us to meet with the local health authorities. I am sure with this final push we can get our hospital."

Oxfordshire PCT says Bicester no longer needs a 30-bed hospital because of the changing nature of health care.