THE MP for Chesham and Amersham is backing our Hand Back our Hospital campaign.

Cheryl Gillan MP expressed concern for patients in her constituency needing emergency care. She said: "If A&E services at Wycombe are effectively downgraded, then my constituents in Chesham and Amersham face a long journey to Aylesbury."

Mrs Gillan believes the decision to move major trauma services from Wycombe Hospital to Stoke Mandeville, near Aylesbury, is a reflection of the state of health services in Buckinghamshire.

She said: "This is more evidence of the effect of Government underfunding of health services in Buckinghamshire. Health services in the county receive 18 per cent less per head than the average. What is proposed for Wycombe Hospital is what happens when local health planners have approximately 80 pence to spend compared with every pound available to health care providers elsewhere."

Her constituency has already felt the pinch of what she believes is the county's under-resourced health service when Chesham Hospital was closed last year.

She said: "In the past year, residents in Chesham and Amersham have lost Chesham Hospital before the equivalent services could be replaced through the proposed Chesham Healthzone."

Bosses voted to close the hospital a year ago and replaced it with a new Healthzone set to provide a centre for three GP practices, with diagnostic and community health services such as physiotherapy.

A location for the Healthzone has yet to be agreed on.