Eagerly-anticipated X-ray facilities have been installed at Wycombe’s revamped Minor Injuries and Illness Unit (MIIU).

Patients will no longer have to trek to the main hospital’s buildings for an X-ray now the MIIU boasts new digital facilities on-site, which are open 24 hours a day.

The main hospital’s X-ray unit used to close at 10pm, meaning that those injured often had to travel to A&E units at Stoke Mandeville or Wexham Park to be seen at night.

Criticism was levelled at Buckinghamshire Urgent Care, which manages the MIIU, for its lack of X-ray facilities, with many questioning just what constituted a ‘minor injury’ if such facilities were not available.

Natasha Bartlett, from Buckinghamshire Urgent Care, said the new 24/7 facilities on-site make a big difference to patients attending the MIIU.

She said: “The facilities are now on site, next to the waiting room. In years gone by patients would have to traipse across the road, up the stairs, round the corner... and come all the way back again for diagnosis and management.

“Now that the facilities are on site the service from start to finish is also more efficient and the comments that we received from patients since the opening have been nothing but massively positive.”

The revamped MIIU will also house the Buckinghamshire GP out-of-hours service and new diagnostic facilities, which should allow for easier and potentially quicker diagnosis.

Dr Adnan Ali, the medical lead at Buckinghamshire Urgent Care, said: “Before we had two or three treatment rooms and were partly based in the old hospital, so we were all over the place.

“Now we have got all the rooms and facilities here. The biggest thing was the X-ray. People had to traipse to the main hospital but now we’re got 24 hour X-ray. It’s a 24 hour service.”

He added: “The GP out of hours is now based here every evening, every night and all day Saturday and Sunday. It was initially based at the old hospital but now it’s here patients will get seen much quicker.”

Dr Ali, Ms Bartlett and chairman of Wycombe District Council, Lesley Clarke, officially opened the revamped unit on Wednesday.

The BFP is still awaiting confirmation of the cost of the new facilities.