A HEADLINE in the BFP, on July 6, posed the question: "Is the NHS healthy now it's reached middle age?".

A recent encounter with Wycombe Hospital's Accident and Emergency Department forces me to answer in the negative.

I had always imagined that dire portrayals of the NHS were simply rare occurrences, exaggerated by the tabloids and not the true state of affairs. My Saturday night experience of Wycombe's A & E showed that I couldn't have been more wrong.

After a paint-balling expedition, my partner had suffered an accident which resulted in his fingers needing several stitches.

It obviously wasn't life threatening but we were told that it was vital he received treatment that evening.

We were initially told that there would be a two-hour wait. In the meantime, I went off for a family meal and said I would pick him up on my way back.

On my return, far from finding him all bandaged up and ready to go, he had moved from 5th to 7th in the queue of invalids.

Two hours later, having waited a total of five hours, he was promoted to second from the top of the queue and remained there for a further four hours.

He eventually got home at 5.45am complete with his seven stitches after an incredible and mind-numbing wait of almost 12 hours.

In fact, the torturous wait was probably more painful than the injury itself. Wycombe A & E is not the most inspiring place; in fact it's probably the least.

The television shows nothing but the same few adverts for local food outlets (blatant cruelty when every food vendor in town is closed and there's nothing on offer apart from insipid machine soup); the only sounds are perpetual patient moans and most of the reading material is tattered and at least two years out of date. It's a truly grim experience.

The recent pilot scheme, involving practitioner nurses, which is intended to make the A & E department more efficient, was clearly not in evidence. As detailed in the said BFP article, this scheme aims to reduce waiting times from four hours (oh, what we'd have given to have only been there for four hours).

Admittedly, we were told that this was an exceptionally busy night but a 12-hour wait for essential treatment is unacceptable.

Perhaps we should have spent the time driving around the country on a quest to find an A & E with a shorter waiting time. It could well have been worth it.

Such a state of affairs is nothing short of unhealthy. Several people gave up waiting, having been there for over four hours.

One woman had been bitten by a stray cat and needed a tetanus jab but couldn't tolerate the unbearable wait.

What if she'd got seriously ill, due to not being seen in a reasonable time? It's quite possible and has no doubt happened.

It's clear that something somewhere is going very wrong. It's not the staff, as they do a fantastic job, but rather the lack of them.

There was just one doctor working that night who was expected to attend to the extra Saturday night demand, which included abundant ambulance arrivals, as well as the less serious injuries.

Surely the NHS can be better than this. Couldn't there have been another doctor on call? Such simple measures could make a dramatic and much needed difference to the standard of service we receive.

These dire straits are only going to force such high-calibre staff to leave their professions, and who could blame them? If measures aren't taken soon and our hard-earned taxes aren't spent more efficiently the facts are simple: there will be no NHS at all.

Kate Atkinson

Mayhew Crescent

High Wycombe