Reopening of A&E department not on the cards

The NHS says there are no plans to reopen a full accident and emergency department at Wycombe Hospital, nearly two decades after the service closed.

That is despite people living in the town telling the BBC they have to travel at least 45 minutes to reach the nearest A&E.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust said reopening one "would not be clinically or financially viable" and added that "it would be very hard to recruit the specialist staff needed".

But Khalil Ahmed, an Independent member of Buckinghamshire Council, said "the desire to have an A&E in Wycombe has never gone away".

Wycombe's A&E department closed in 2005 under reforms that saw emergency care focused in just larger hospitals, but it has an intensive care unit and an urgent treatment centre which is opens between 08:00 and 20:00 for minor injuries and illnesses.

Patients who need need to visit an A&E department must travel to Aylesbury, Slough or Oxford.

Ahmed said people who went to Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury faced waiting times of "anything from 12 hours-plus, so it could be even a day or two sat in a corridor".

He said Wycombe was the biggest town in Buckinghamshire but it had been reduced to "second class citizens and second class services", as it did not have a police station, either.

He told the BBC that Buckinghamshire Council's recent approval of plans for a £20m endoscopy department at Wycombe Hospital had renewed public attention on what services the hospital should provide in the future.

Although it offers cardiac and stroke care, Ahmed said that "if I was to have a heart attack outside the hospital doors, they could not actually treat me" because of the lack of an A&E department.

Campaigners said a lack of an A&E department disproportionately affected older people and those without access to cars and left neighbouring hospitals struggling to cope.

Peter Cartwright, 82, suffered a heart attack three years ago and was taken to Wexham Park in Slough because "they would not take me to Wycombe as it was close to 20:00".

He said someone he knew had died while being transferred to a hospital further away.

Another campaigner, Sarah Sturt, who lives with a chronic medical condition that sometimes means she cannot drive, said waiting for an ambulance to take her to another A&E department for treatment "could take days".

She added that "if you are discharged in the middle of the night, there is no way home".

Trevor Snaith, another Independent on Buckinghamshire Council, said the growth of Wycombe meant that having an A&E department "would meet the needs of a massive community".

He added the issue had cross-party support on Buckinghamshire Council.

A spokesperson for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust said a full A&E at Wycombe Hospital "would not be clinically or financially viable" as "it would require significant capital and revenue investment which the trust does not have"

They added that "it would be very hard to recruit the specialist staff needed" but "emergency services were best delivered through specialist centres supported by local urgent care".