AN MP has bemoaned the parking set-up and long journey families face in an emergency race to troubled Wexham Park Hospital.

MP Steve Baker filmed the trip from his home in West Wycombe to Wexham Park to highlight the “awful” and overly long journey residents face to reach one of the two nearest A&E centres to High Wycombe.

Just ten minutes in Mr Baker points out he would have reached Wycombe Hospital in the same it took him to drive to Handy Cross.

The Wycombe MP was still approximately 13 minutes away from Wexham Park Hospital when he reached the 20 minute travel mark.

Mr Baker said: “Twenty minutes is the boundary experts tell us people are prepared to travel for an emergency assessment.

"So really by now, by any standard, we should now be going in for the emergency assessment we need, so this really is too far.”

Bucks Free Press: Steve Baker Wexham Park Hospital

When he finally arrived at Wexham Park, Mr Baker had his head in his hands after he was unable to find a parking space. He said: “I would be beside myself by now if I was on my own with a sick child.”

He told the Free Press: “The journey was rubbish and the parking is awful, so I would be inclined to dial 999.

“I later found a drop off bay but they were not immediately obvious when you arrive so I would image people and families would panic.”

Mr Baker said the video was building evidence as part of his campaign to improve health services for Wycombe residents.

Later in the YouTube clip, Mr Baker questions Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust chairman Mike O’Donovan about the care the hospital offers and flags up his parking experiences.

The trust was placed in to special measures earlier this month following a report by the Care Quality Commission.

The report said there is a shortage of clinical staff so the hospital has a heavy reliance on agency staff that are unfamiliar to the hospital wards.

Staff were found to be kind and compassionate but often too busy to support patients properly and there is a “lack of clinical engagement”.

Mr O’Donovan said the report was ‘disappointing’ but “the good news is you will get treated here as well as anywhere else across the country.”

The hospital was keen to get people through A&E quicker and had implemented changes, including increasing the numbers of beds.

Mr O’Donovan apologised to Mr Baker for his parking problems and said the Trust was adding 90 additional spaces and changing patient visitor times in an attempt to alleviate some of the peak parking hours.

The Trust’s Acting Chief Executive Grant MacDonald will appear before Buckinghamshire County Council's Health and Adult Social Care (HASC) select committee at 10am on May 20 at County Hall.