AN ADVERT has been posted for an A&E nurse at Wycombe Hospital - even though there has been no A&E at the site since 2005.

The post was put up on the Government's national online job search database last week.

Under the heading Staff Nurse - Accident & Emergency - High Wycombe - the ad states the successful applicant will need to be able to assess, plan, implement and evaluate programmes of care in an A&E department. The advertised salary is between £46,464 - £73,920.

It has been filed under the category mental health.

The ad reads: "If you are an experienced accident and emergency nurse looking for flexible shifts, this could be the role for you.

"This hospital is situated in the centre of the historic town of High Wycombe, and offers a wide range of surgical services and specialist medical care."

None of the health authorities contacted by the Free Press were aware of the job ad.

Bucks Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said it was nothing to do with them, as did The Chiltern Clinical Commissioning Group and Bucks Urgent Care, in charge of the hospital minor injuries unit.

The Oxfordshire Mental Health Trust was also unsure where it had come from but said it suspected an agency that "does not understand the NHS" placed it.

The trust said in a statement: "What happens to us quite a lot is that an agency will see one of our adverts and then transpose some of the details so that it appears it is us that are looking for the candidates rather than the agency itself.

"Then if we appoint a candidate who has come through their advert they try to charge us a finder’s fee which is usually ten per cent of the annual salary."

Cllr Darren Hayday, currently running a petition calling for Wycombe Hospital to get back its A&E, said: "As much as I'd like to be optimistic and think that they were thinking of bringing it back it sounds like an admin error. They probably meant to put down to Stoke Mandeville.

"It does sound like someone has made a bit of a cock up somewhere.

"It may be a Freudian slip."

His petition has now got over 3,000 names.

"I'm very serious about bringing A&E back and want this to gain momentum," he said.

To join his petition online type 'bring back Wycombe A and E' into a search engine.