Oxford hospital trust cancelling surgeries over 'ventilation problem'

Services across the the trust's four hospital sites, which also include the Churchill, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Banbury's Horton General, are affected.

A statement from the trust said Level 1 Theatres of the West Wing at the John Radcliffe Hospital were now unable to be used and combined with ongoing refurbishment works it represented a 'significant' loss of operating space.

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It added: "We are currently working to establish all planned and emergency patients who require urgent surgery, to enable us to risk assess and prioritise cases that may need operating on in an alternative location.

The trust said staff in the Estates team and colleagues from Bouygues, who are responsible for the West Wing PFI building, were 'working hard' to resolve the issue and to bring the theatres back into use.

However, it was not currently known how long the theatres are going to be out of action.

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Work was already ongoing in the main John Radcliffe operating theatres which means that four of those theatres are also currently out of action.

The trust said it is also talking to referring hospitals, colleagues in clinical networks and South Central Ambulance Service about how they can help.

Sam Foster, Chief Nursing Officer said: "I would like to apologise to any patient whose operation has had to be postponed as a result of this problem with our theatres.

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"We are working hard to make sure that all patients requiring urgent operations, including cancer patients, are able to continue to get the operations they need.

"Our Estates colleagues are working hard to get us back up to full capacity and we hope to be able to rearrange postponed operations as soon as possible."