Wycombe Hospital's plight to be debated in Parliament today (From Bucks Free Press)

Wycombe Hospital's plight to be debated in Parliament today

9:32am Monday 14th January 2013 in News

THE plight of Wycombe Hospital is set to go before Parliament once again today, after MP Steve Baker was granted a debate in the House of Commons on vascular services.

The Wycombe MP’s adjournment debate, granted by the Speaker, John Bercow, will be heard this afternoon.

The issue centres around the fact certain complex vascular procedures, for patients with disorders of the arteries and veins, are set to be moved out of Wycombe and Royal Berkshire hospitals.

The work will be centralised at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Health campaigner John Barlow last month welcomed the Parliamentary debate, hailing it as the latest step in the Save Our Hospital Services group’s battle for Wycombe Hospital.

Mr Barlow noted that Wycombe Hospital had been repeatedly mentioned in Westminster last year year – first when campaigners went to visit former health secretary Andrew Lansley and again last month when Mr Baker highlighted the case of a woman suffering heart problems who would not be admitted on foot at Wycombe.

Instead she had to be admitted by ambulance, which picked her up from the hospital entrance.

Mr Barlow said: "There seems to be significant problems at Wycombe Hospital and the Save Our Services group will continue to fight for the retention of services at Wycombe Hospital.

"I guess it’s unfortunate that rather than listening to what the public are calling for, the managers have to be coerced by pressure groups going to Parliament.

"We would far rather the hospital managers work with us."

An adjournment debate is a way of having a general debate in the Commons without requiring the House to vote and can take several different forms.

Some allow the Commons to hold a general open-ended debate on a subject or a government policy without reaching a formal decision about it.

Others allow backbench MPs to raise constituency issues or other matters relating to government administration or policy - and to get a response on these from a government minister.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the John Radcliffe, has previously told the BFP: "Centralisation of vascular surgery into larger dedicated centres has been initiated by vascular surgeons of the Vascular Society and supported by Vascular Networks.

"Oxford was chosen as the site to provide vascular surgery after extensive research and consultation by the South Central Cardiovascular Network.

"This decision has been endorsed by the external review and recommends that the centralisation of services at the John Radcliffe Hospital should go ahead as planned.”