NEW Wycombe MP Steve Baker will today meet the Government’s top NHS chief to plead the case for downgraded Wycombe Hospital.

He will meet Andrew Lansley MP, secretary of state for health, at The Department of Health.

The hospital has lost serious A&E cases and doctor-led births in recent years – but the new Government has not said it will roll back changes.

A major consultation will be launched in the coming months that is expected to propose further cuts in services (see links, bottom of story).

A Bucks Labour boss today said: “I wish him well but I think he is on to a loser.”

Mr Baker said: “Throughout the General Election campaign, I stated that I would seek fair funding, local control and freedom for clinical professionals.

“I feel these themes are the elements of our manifesto which are most needed in Wycombe.

“I will be in the department for lunch with the secretary of state on Wednesday, making this case.”

In a letter to health minister Simon Burns he said there was still ‘strong feelings’ in the town about the changes, which bosses said were needed to ensure safety Mr Baker said: “No other issue compares to it in terms of the anxiety and concern it arouses.

“Above all, local people feel powerless. I am dismayed when I find people have given up hope of averting decline. In Wycombe, we need reform urgently.”

Quoting The Bucks Free Press’s ‘Hand Back Our Hospital’ campaign he told the minister the hospital is ‘my top priority’. He asked for a meeting with Mr Burns.

The MP has previously said he would ‘strive’ to return services but could make no promises.

Yet Ted Collins, Labour Party secretary for Buckinghamshire, said the MP stood no chance of getting them back.

He said: “One, the cost. I can’t see them spending the money to put it all back.

“The other one is because the clinical people, the surgeons and the rest of it, want it that way, they really do.”

He said staff were stretched when services were at Wycombe and Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, both run by the same health authority.

Mr Collins said: “A lot of Labour Party members supported the campaign. I went on one or two of the rallies but I never believed we could prevent it.”