NEARLY 80 per cent of Wantage and Grove residents want an accident and emergency department provided locally, a survey has shown.

The majority of people questioned also think that, along with other other important health services, should be provided at Wantage Community Hospital.

More than 1,600 households - some 4,000 people - responded to the Wantage Town Council health survey launched in January.

Councillors now hope to use the results to tell county NHS managers – currently running their own health service transformation survey – what people in the area really think.

Councillor Ben Mabbett, a member of the health committee, said he was delighted with the number of responses.

He went on: "For the most part the results are what we expected, but that is a good thing: it means we pitched it right and that we are already reflecting the views of the people of Wantage in that we want to maintain services at Wantage Community Hospital and we will fight tooth and nail to keep them."

The results showed that 35 per cent of people in the OX12 postcode area have used Wantage Community Hospital in the past five years.

The council launched its survey in response to a series of squeezes on health services locally.

First came the closure of the 12 in-patient beds at Wantage Community Hospital last summer by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The authority said there was a risk of a legionella outbreak in the outdated plumbing system and it was not prepared to reopen the unit until after the results of the current health consultation being run by Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group to determine how health services might be streamlines across the county.

Many, including the town council, fear the hospital may be closed completely and services moved to Abingdon or Oxford.

That blow was followed by the news in November that NHS England had refused Wantage Health Centre funding to expand.

The centre's two practices, Newbury Street and Church Street, said the £4m expansion funding was essential to cope with the growing population.

Mr Mabbett said the town council now planned to properly analyse all 1,684 survey responses in order to submit selected results to county health managers and NHS England.

He said: "These results mean that when the NHS survey results come out we are able to say 'actually, the people of Wantage have said this'.

"We have now got more than 1,600 households saying what they want."

Town clerk Bill Falkenau added: "The survey will provide a valuable information database from which to develop the health sub-committee’s policies and responses to the NHS consultations later in the year."