If you are arranging hospital transport by taxi in High Wycombe, the first complication is that appointments in Buckinghamshire are rarely at the hospital nearest you. An outpatient clinic that used to be at Wycombe might now be at Stoke Mandeville, a scan might be at Amersham, and anything specialist can send you to Oxford. Add a 7:30am arrival time and a consultant who does not much care that the bus was late, and getting there becomes its own piece of planning.
This is a large part of what we do day to day, so here is what is actually useful to know.
First, the important bit
A taxi is for planned appointments. If someone is seriously unwell or injured, call 999. If you are not sure how urgent something is, call NHS 111. We are not a medical service and we would always rather you rang them first.
Where you are likely to be going
The runs we do most often from High Wycombe are:
- Wycombe Hospital on Queen Alexandra Road — outpatients, day surgery, and the Urgent Treatment Centre for minor injuries.
- Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury — this is where the A&E for the area is, and a lot of inpatient and specialist services besides.
- Amersham Hospital — outpatient clinics and diagnostics.
- Wexham Park in Slough and the John Radcliffe or Churchill in Oxford for specialist referrals.
The Aylesbury and Oxford runs are the ones people most often underestimate. Neither is a quick hop, both cross traffic that behaves differently depending on the hour, and both have parking that fills early.
Have you checked whether NHS transport covers you?
Before you pay for anything, it is worth asking. The NHS runs a non-emergency Patient Transport Service for people who have a medical need that makes travelling by other means difficult. It is assessed on clinical need rather than convenience or cost, so not everyone qualifies, but if you have mobility problems, need a stretcher or wheelchair vehicle, or are having treatment that leaves you unable to travel alone, it is worth asking the department that sent you the appointment letter.
There are also charitable and community transport schemes locally that run volunteer car services for medical appointments, usually at low cost. Your GP surgery is normally the best place to ask about those.
If none of that applies to you, or you would simply rather book a car and know exactly when it is arriving, that is where we come in.
Booking the return leg matters more than the outward one
Getting there is the easy half. Coming home is where people get caught out, because hospital appointments overrun as a matter of routine and taxi ranks at hospitals are not reliable in the middle of the afternoon.
The way that works best is to book the outward journey to a fixed time, then ring us when you are actually finished. We would rather take a call at an unpredictable moment than have you standing outside a main entrance hoping something turns up. If your appointment is one where you know roughly how long it takes — a regular infusion, dialysis, a routine scan — tell us and we can hold a return slot.
Things worth mentioning when you book
- Which entrance you need. Large hospital sites have several, and the difference between the right one and the wrong one can be a long walk you did not want.
- Whether you use a wheelchair or walking frame, and whether it needs to travel with you. This decides the vehicle, so tell us at booking rather than on the day.
- Whether someone is coming with you. Many procedures require a responsible adult to take you home, and it is easier to plan the car around that from the start.
- If you have been told not to drive afterwards. Sedation and some eye procedures rule out driving for the rest of the day, which is often why people ring us in the first place.
Same driver, where we can
For anyone on a course of treatment with repeat appointments, we will try to keep you with the same driver. It is a small thing, but not having to explain the wheelchair, the entrance and the route every single time makes the whole business less tiring — and it matters to older passengers in particular.
Ask about it when you book a series of appointments and we will do our best to arrange it.
Booking
Call 01494 702008 or book online. Have the appointment letter to hand — the site, the department and the arrival time are all we need to plan the journey properly.