A general election candidate in Maidenhead has said he wants to get the walk-in centre at St Mark’s Hospital reopened – but another said she’d prioritise more GP appointments instead.

Liberal Democrat candidate Joshua Reynolds said he’d been ‘campaign for years’ to reopen the walk-in centre during a debate on Tuesday, June 18. The hospital’s minor injury and illness centre has remained closed since April 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Reynolds said: “I’ve been campaigning to reopen the walk in centre at St Mark’s for years now. We’ve got to get it reopened.”

He claimed said that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead had been working on a plan to open a GP hub on Reform Road – but that plans were scuppered due to lack of government funding.

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Labour candidate Jo Smith said she would also like to see a walk-in centre for Maidenhead – but getting more GP appointments is a greater priority.

She said: “I would love to have an A&E in Maidenhead. I would love to have a new hospital here – I would love to have a walk-in centre. But we have to be realistic and prioritise what’s most important.

“And if we can only deliver one thing which I think is likely bearing in mind the financial situation, the thing I hear overwhelmingly from the people in Maidenhead is not that they want a walk-in centre but they want to be able to get a GP appointment when they ring.”

She added: “If we have to prioritise one thing that’s what I would say is the thing that would make the most difference to people in Maidenhead.”

Conservative candidate Tania Mathias said she had noticed a ‘community desire’ for a walk-in. But she suggested that the NHS could be best improved by analysing the performance of local services.

She said: “What is odd is some people saying they have good experience of GP appointments and then you can go very close by and other people queuing up in the morning for an appointment in the heat for their relative and obviously that service is not adequate.

“It’s a question of working with the community, with the GPs and obviously all the hospital services. It comes back to monitoring and doing analysis – is this working or are we letting people down?”

Candidates were asked if they thought NHS services in Maidenhead were adequate and what they would do to improve them, at the hustings hosted by Churches Together.

Green candidate Andrew Cooney said his party wanted to spend £20 billion on hospital buildings and equipment and £1.5 billion on primary care. He said local spending would be decided in consultation with residents.

Independent candidate George Wright said more money needed to be put into primary care – and said he was in favour of privatising parts of primary care to do so.