I want to support the alarm sounded in a letter in the Free Press last week about the loss of a comprehensive accident and emergency department in High Wycombe. We now have to travel the considerable distance from High Wycombe to the hospitals in Aylesbury and Slough. In the time taken to travel there people could die or at least suffer extra pain and distress. High Wycombe is still growing and there are now plans to allow hundreds more houses to be built here. We also live alongside the busy M40 which has had some terrible accidents. Lives are at risk as a result of the closure of the A&E department – it is time more people protested.

I am a pensioner and have lived in this area for more than 45 years and the closure of the department must be one of the worst problems our town and district has suffered. Too many people have ignored this and I read that too few have signed petitions protesting about our loss.

Many of those people who have not signed it will painfully discover the awful situation we are in if they have to be hurriedly taken to Stoke Mandeville or Wexham Park hospitals. Of course it also means that we have further to travel to an outpatients department if we want to visit a patient. — Mrs Joan Collins, Tylers Green