Read and submit, views, opinions, letters and more to the Oxford Times

A sorry state

8:00am Thursday 16th May 2013

One response to the horrors inflicted on young girls in this city by a predatory child sex gang has been ‘if it could happen in Oxford, it could happen anywhere.’

• Have your say

Sigh of relief

8:00am Thursday 16th May 2013

Some readers will greet this week’s story about the redevelopment of the Westgate with knowing smiles.

• Comments(2)
• Have your say »

Horse trading

6:30am Thursday 9th May 2013

Advice from two figures, from the distant and not so distant past, will have brought little post-election comfort to David Cameron.

Pull together

6:30am Thursday 9th May 2013

In these tough times for pubs, and so many of them in Oxfordshire being transformed into homes and Tesco Express stores, villagers in Great Milton will surely be the toast of beer drinkers this week.

• Have your say

Timely visit

12:46pm Monday 6th May 2013

During a visit to Oxfordshire this week the Education Secretary pondered the pace of reform and how to respond when policy did not appear to be working at every school.

Micro power

8:00am Thursday 25th April 2013

Any lingering doubts about the determination of the green-minded residents of West Oxford to build a hydro at Osney Lock were well and truly sunk this week.

• Have your say

Hub hubbub

4:55pm Friday 19th April 2013

In The Oxford Times library there is a photograph dating from the 1950s, which shows a petrol and oil depot in the sidings of Oxford Rail Station. The site, the caption tells readers, “may be turned into a bus station to replace Gloucester Green”.

• Comments(2)
• Have your say »

Iron resolve

12:51pm Thursday 11th April 2013

Friends and former foes have been generous and ungrudging in their praise of Lady Thatcher in a city that played an important part in her life from the darkest days of the Second World War.

• Have your say

Slow going

4:11pm Friday 5th April 2013

Transport ministers appear like buses. You wait ages for one to show up and then . . .

Good or ill

5:14pm Friday 5th April 2013

There is no doubting the huge amount of time and energy put into the creating the new body that from next week will be commissioning healthcare on our behalf. And the huge amount of energy put into opposing what has been billed as the biggest local NHS shake up for decades, has been focused on the prospect of many of those services being taken over by the private sector — coming in to cherry pick the most profitable and easily deliverable services — while leaving the hard pressed NHS to pick up the expensive, difficult and demanding work. But one aspect in the creation of the new body, the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, has to some extent been overlooked, and that’s the all-important issue of how well it is going to be funded. For all the arguments about the involvement of GPs, and just how closely they will be involved in reality, much will come down to money. The old primary care trust’s budget was nearly a £1bn. The new body has about £650m: some 223 people were employed by Oxfordshire PCT, while OCCG will employ 95 people. Now confusingly, some commissioning services will go elsewhere, so it is not a case of comparing like with like. But we are talking a much more slim-line organisation, still finding its feet, faced with massive pressures on all sides. It is estimated that the numbers presenting themselves at the JR, or arriving by ambulance, went up by 15 per cent in a year. The increasing cost of meeting the health needs of the elderly remains the ticking time bomb. We wish the new organisation well. But news that from day one it will be seeking to cut cost is unlikely to inspire GPs, who will find themselves in the centre of things for good or ill.

• Have your say

More Leader»