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THE saga of Wycombe Hospital would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

High Wycombe is a large, expanding town in a sprawling district which has a population of around 162,000 people.

Yet, it no longer has a hospital with full facilities. Its once proud multi-purpose hospital no longer provides emergency trauma care, unless you are about to drop dead and you cannot be ferried anywhere else.

And, very soon, the hospital will also cease to have inpatient children's and maternity wards because these will also be relocated at Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury.

Last week, another nail was driven home into the coffin of its former status as a general hospital when it emerged there would probably no longer be an accident and emergency department at Wycombe.

A&E is not disappearing as such but it is being proposed that the name should be changed to better reflect the emergency medical care offered'. It would be called something like the emergency care department'.

The NHS hospitals trust will come in for a bucket-load of criticism for this, but on this occasion I actually agree with the proposal, currently under discussion, because it would clear up any confusion.

No, don't fall off your seats and accuse me of being a traitor to the cause. I led three campaigns against the hospital changes and am sickened by how we, the public, have been treated over this. An official consultation was carried out at the time but, even though around 40,000 people objected, the moves were given the go-ahead.

However, the old regime running Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust has now largely gone, and a new management team has inherited this almighty mess.

Huge confusion has reigned since emergency trauma moved to Aylesbury two years ago. Many people believe A&E has already disappeared, and they may have a point since the E function of the name doesn't fully apply any longer.

The A&E department still, however, functions in a number of traditional respects. I've used it several times over the years for minor emergencies, and I believe the proposed new set-up would still adequately cater for all of these cases.

As long as they assure us that the actual unit will remain, I cannot see that the name change will make any negative difference. It may instead serve as a continual reminder to the rest of the world of what Wycombe is missing.

My suggestion would be to rename A&E as the Minor Accident & Less Urgent Emergencies' unit. That way you'd get exactly what it said on the tin.

For, as we all know, patients in the district are now in the ridiculous position of having to be ferried to Aylesbury if they are seriously injured in an accident, say, on Marlow Hill just outside the gates of Wycombe Hospital.

So, forgive me, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud this week when I read a comment on our website in relation to four people being trapped in a lift inside Wycombe Hospital last Thursday.

One of these unfortunate people had to be given emergency medical treatment at the scene - prompting a web reader to write underneath the story: "I'm amazed they didn't drive them to SM."

Yes, it is hilarious, but there's a horrible ring of truth to this. What if the person had been very seriously, but not fatally, injured inside Wycombe Hospital's lift? Would they have been taken in an ambulance to Aylesbury?

I suspect the answer is yes, and that's a terrible indictment on the lack of High Wycombe's self-sufficiency.

But it works both ways. A web reader commenting on another hospital story pointed out that if you have a cardiac problem, you go to Wycombe and not Stoke Mandeville. This man was in Stoke and saw an elderly patient who had been admitted with a heart problem.

The patient was told he had to be transferred to High Wycombe.

"This left him in a distressed state as his wife would not be able to visit. And this is what they call 21st century health care," said the web reader.

I couldn't agree more. A friend of mine, who does not drive, had to take his young son to hospital for a urinary problem.

But Wycombe couldn't deal with it and nor could Aylesbury. So my friend had to spend £80 on taxis there and back to Oxford.

Yes, it could be all be very funny, but on reflection it's not. Because the joke is on the poor patients of south Bucks, and that's really no laughing matter.

7:09pm Thursday 18th October 2007

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