Another farce at Wycombe Hospital, another reason to increase accountability


Crash at the entrance to Wycombe Hospital

Click for Bucks Free Press story

Last Tuesday, there was a car accident outside Wycombe Hospital. The Bucks Free Press reports:

TWO people injured in [a] road collision were taken to two separate hospitals in Slough and Aylesbury- despite the accident happening in the grounds of Wycombe Hospital.

And the story has been picked up by the Daily Mail:

Health bosses spent thousands of pounds sending a helicopter and four ambulances to a car crash 70 yards from a hospital – because its A&E ward had been closed leaving the injured having to be ferried miles to other units.

Staff from Wycombe Hospital attended the scene. In the course of the Bucks Free Press article, we learn:

Sarah Hills, communications manager from Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Thank you to all staff at Wycombe Hospital who attended the scene of the accident as quickly as possible to help with the casualties and also to ensure the safety of other visitors and patients on our site. We were able to maintain access for emergency vehicles to our cardiac and stroke department throughout and were able to restore full access to the site very quickly.”

Local people are left wondering why once again we are told these arrangements are in our best interests and why more cannot be dealt with here in Wycombe. It’s clear to me that if the NHS were more accountable to the public who pay for it then services would be configured very differently. That’s why I am promoting patient-led commissioning, which worked well before the formation of the NHS and which ought to be tried again.

In the meantime, I’ll be asking the County Health Select Committee to investigate the incident with those responsible for local services, the Clinical Commissioning Groups and the NHS Trust.

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