10:50am Friday 20th October 2006
INCREASING numbers of A&E patients in Bucks are being driven into Berkshire instead of going to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, it has been revealed.
Wycombe MP Paul Goodman has lodged questions in Parliament demanding to know whether more patients are being sent to Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, since the Bucks healthcare changes came into force last year.
However hospital bosses admitted yesterday that there had been an increase.
A nurse at Wexham Park A&E says a large number of patients from the Wycombe district are now being taken there instead of Stoke Mandeville - even though health chiefs agreed the Aylesbury hospital would be the ideal solution.
Mr Goodman said: "How many are now being taken to Wexham Park or transferred to Wexham Park?"
The news raises doubts over why most trauma and emergency surgery was transferred to Aylesbury from Wycombe Hospital, when ambulance drivers allegedly prefer to use a neighbouring Berkshire hospital.
The Slough hospital has always served South Bucks, but the nurse claims that many patients who otherwise would have gone to Wycombe Hospital before the changes, are now going to Wexham Park.
She says the route to Slough is quicker for ambulance drivers and therefore safer for patients, as they then avoid the rural A4010 to Aylesbury.
She has been backed by Carol Welch, 61, whose husband, Rodney, was taken to Slough after breaking his hip last month.
Mrs Welch, of Roman Way, Bourne End, said ambulance staff wanted to drive to Wexham Park because the route be would be faster.
The clerical officer, who works at Wycombe Hospital, said: "When the ambulance came he the driver said you're supposed to go to Stoke Mandeville, but we are going to take you to Wexham because it would be quicker'," she said.
"He was in really bad pain and they obviously went on the motorway."
Mrs Welch said her husband would almost certainly have been taken to Wycombe had services not been switched to Aylesbury, because it is closer than Stoke Mandeville and Wexham Park.
Mrs Welch, who does not drive, was forced to rely on her children for lifts to the hospital.
She added that a patient in the same ward was also from Wycombe.
Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust issued a statement, also on behalf of Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Trust. saying: "There has been a small increase in patients going to Wexham Park Hospital from South Bucks. Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Trust reports they are coping with the small increase well.
"It is important to remember that paramedics use their judgement in identifying the most appropriate health facilities to take a patient to."
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk