The war over our NHS services is not yet over (From Bucks Free Press)

The war over our NHS services is not yet over

12:00am Tuesday 31st July 2012 in Your Letters

RE: The decision to retain a 24/7 urgent care service at Wycombe Hospital after a campaign in the Bucks Free Press and the Save Our Hospital Services group.

MAY I offer my congratulations to all involved in the saving of Wycombe Hospital A&E department, well a slightly modified version thereof, from the bean-counters.

Those involved are the Bucks Free Press editor, Steve Cohen, chairman of the magnificent Save Our Hospital Services (SOHS) group and of course all those good people who put their names to the petition. What a relief to know that we won’t have to suffer the horrendous journey to either Stoke Mandeville or Wexham Park hospitals for urgent but not life threatening conditions.

I note that the 24/7 urgent care service, hopefully its official name will be a little shorter, will be staffed by GPs and specialist nurses. Does this mean I wonder, that GPs are now accepting responsibility for some of their patients after hours again? They abrogated out of hours care for us some years ago and left us with a pretty poor, I have found, service in its stead.

May I suggest that was a great battle won but only in the short term.

I must remind you all that the WAR is not yet over, and it is likely there will be more plans to reduce our local hospital services in the future. To that end may I ask the good people of Wycombe and its environs to log on to the SOHS web page http://www.bucksvoice.net/sohs/ and join in the campaign? After all it is you they are fighting for, and like any campaign they always need more people to help us all in our battles for better healthcare in our community in the High Wycombe area.

Richard JC English, Earl Close, High Wycombe