LETTER to Simon Burns, MP, Minister of State (Health). Re: Wycombe Hospital.

THANK you for accepting my intervention in the adjournment debate of 16 June on behalf of Wycombe Hospital. I understand interventions are not usual during the adjournment, so I am much obliged.

Time and again, local people tell me of their strong feelings about the loss of services at Wycombe Hospital under Labour. 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. Having lost A&E and consultant-led maternity plus related services, we are, in a nutshell, quite some way down the road from which the Horton Hospital was skilfully diverted. We now find that stroke, cardio and vascular may be under threat.

Our hospital is therefore my top priority and I know our local paper, the Bucks Free Press, is keen to restart its campaign “Hand Back Our Hospital”. 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. Further to my intervention, I would be most grateful for an early meeting to discuss the Government’s programme for reform and how I might help further the agenda in Wycombe so that, at last, our local health services might meet expectations.

Steve Baker,MP for Wycombe.