Woman disgusted with A&E services travels to Stoke Mandeville Hospital treatment

Catherine Bunting had to take her husband all the way up to Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 2022 after a football injury.

The resident was turned away from Wycombe due to the hospital not having its own Type 1 A&E department after the emergency facility was moved to Stoke Mandeville in 2006.

She said: “My husband was playing football in the evening, and he was tackled and went into the wire sides of the pitch and cut his head open quite badly and damaged his hand quite badly. He came in white as a sheet, blood running down his face.”

Bunting drove her husband to Wycombe Hospital as it was closest, saying she was ‘on auto-pilot mode’ in a ‘moment of panic’ and did not stop to question whether doctors there would not be able to treat him.

“So, I got him there,” Bunting continued, “Got to the front doors and they said, ‘No, you can’t, you need to go on to Stoke Mandeville’. So, we were turned away there and then had to make the trip across to Stoke Mandeville, which is a real trek.”

Fortunately, Bunting’s trip up to Aylesbury only took around 30 minutes as they went at night when the roads were quiet, but she believes it could have been up to 45 minutes if his accident had been during the day.

Her husband required stitches to his head and was in ‘a bad way for a while’ with his hand, but the couple said they were lucky his accident was not worse.

Bunting said: “It is just horrific for it to be such a long journey and especially for people from Wycombe as well, it being such a huge town, if you don’t have transport, how are you supposed to get there?”

She added that the thought of vulnerable people travelling from Wycombe to Aylesbury for treatment was ‘scary’ and that vital time might be ‘wasted’ making the trip.

The Great Missenden resident praised the staff at Wycombe Hospital, saying they had provided good care to her and people she knows over the years, including a friend who suffered a stroke.

However, her friend, and many others have complained about the hospital having poor facilities, especially in its 1960s-built tower, where out-of-order lifts are among the issues commonly reported.

She said: “I do hear good things about people and the treatment that they have there, but just how terribly run down it is and it desperately needs funding.

“I think it is disgusting to have a town the size of Wycombe without an A&E there. I don’t know how that’s allowed.

“If there was a serious accident in Wycombe, like at the football stadium or train station, if there were a number of casualties, imagine having to transport a number of people from Wycombe to Stoke Mandeville. It would be ridiculous.”

Catherine Bunting is a Great Missenden parish councillor for Prestwood & Heath End and stood for the Green party in Wycombe in the 4 July general election.