Sir – The NHS are running a campaign entitled ‘Choose Well’, encouraging people to make a more informed utilisation of health and medical services, so as to save time and inconvenience (presumably for patients and staff alike).

The guidelines accompanying the campaign advise that in the case of a suspected broken bone, the injured party should go to their local Minor Injury Unit (MIU), rather than a hospital Accident & Emergency Department (which should only be accessed if a condition is life-threatening). While I can appreciate the sense of this advice, my own experience sadly indicates that certainly in the case of Witney’s local services there is a definite mismatch between NHS rhetoric and the reality.

Last week, having suffered a nasty fall on the ice I made an appointment to see my local GP, who upon examining me diagnosed a suspected broken bone or bones in my arm and told me I needed to have an X-ray taken. According to the NHS guidance, I should have thus actioned a trip to Witney MIU; however this was not to be due to the fact I was told that their X-ray machine was out of service (and I surmised had been in this state for quite some time). Hence, my only option was a trek to the A&E Department at the John Radcliffe.

If the scores of injured people sitting in the waiting room at the John Radcliffe give an accurate impression of the damage wrought by the ice in terms of broken bones, then I’m pretty certain I’m not the only individual from the Witney vicinity who was compelled to travel to Oxford in order to have an X-ray.

It is all very well for the NHS to exhort us to make a more judicious use of health and medical services, but unless they provide the equipment and facilities to make this viable, then their ‘Choose Well’ advice is at best empty and at worst dishonest.

Liz Edwards, Witney