YOU wait ages for a review into urgent healthcare services at Wycombe and Stoke Mandeville Hospitals and then, bus-like, two come along at once.

Wycombe District Council is hoping for input from people who have used the Minor Illness and Injuries Unit at Wycombe Hospital and A&E at Stoke at a meeting next month, while Healthwatch Bucks is asking people to fill in surveys on a similar subject (see page 2 for details).

All this comes after a difficult and controversial few years for Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust – and the patients using its services – culminating in last year’s scathing Keogh Review.

The thing about urgent care services is, you only need them when you need them – until that time comes, like any other hospital service, it is easy to put them out of mind.

I have had call to use the MIIU twice this year – not for me but for my young son. The first time was a cut on his head (lots of blood but looked worse than it was – a bit of glue did the job), the second time a suspected illness that the 111 number said we should get checked out but that thankfully turned out to be nothing.

On the first visit, in the spring, my son – then three – was sat with a bloodied head, beside himself with fright and shock to start with, then soon calming down to display the sort of slightly shell-shocked stoicism that makes a parent proud. We had to wait a while to be seen – longer than I would have liked, but well within the target time (having to wait more than two minutes with a distressed child feels too long). The treatment he had when it came was excellent, the nursing staff kind, caring and helping him through a pretty unpleasant experience.

It could be that had I been referred to take my son to Stoke Mandeville late at night (as both these visits were) I would have felt a lot less sanguine about the whole thing, but we certainly had no grounds for complaint.

But while we sat there quietly waiting I was, sadly, not at all shocked to see an adult kicking off in far more childish style than my pre-schooler. His problem seemed to be a cut arm that wasn’t being seen quickly enough for his liking. He was noisy, obnoxious and ignorant – stopping short of requiring intervention from security, but an unpleasant distraction for the MIIU staff to be dealing with and fellow patients to have to listen to.

It always amazes me that people think it is OK to moan at front-line staff like this. Even if things are going dreadfully, it is usually the system that is the root problem, rarely those actually facing the public. Staff simply have to work within a framework they may or may not agree with themselves.

I’m sure all of us in Wycombe would rather, for instance, we still had a full A&E service at the hospital – but that certainly is not the fault of anyone holding the fort in the MIIU.

This meandering point I am making is that constructive criticism – that acknowledges some of the pressures the service is under – is a lot more useful than huffy, ineffective petulance. And with that in mind I hope lots of people get involved with these reviews – both at the meeting and with the survey.

The only chance we have to get anything like the urgent care framework we want is if we tell the right people in the right way – not by half-witted tantrums at reception desks.