'Bumper to bumper’ queues leading up to the Great Western Hospital site are causing frustration for users.

And the heavy traffic has reportedly caused some people to miss appointments while sitting in traffic in warm weather for up to an hour.

Swindon's hospital has now responded - and says it is because it is "very busy".

At times, the queues on the A4259 have reached the Coate Water roundabout and A419 while the hospital car park - where an ANPR system came into force in April - is full of cars.

One person wrote on Facebook on Wednesday (May 9): “As I was leaving the hospital at midday, the traffic was horrific going in from A419.”

Another said: “Was a nightmare this morning around 11.20am it took me nearly an hour to park.”

Commenters advised one another to allow at least an hour to reach the hospital.

The car park is said to be operating a ‘one in, one out’ policy, with staff directing traffic.

One anonymous staff member wrote: “The car park is not big enough. It never was.”

He claimed it has been made worse by doctors' strikes leading to longer waiting times for patients.

A Great Western Hospital spokesperson said: “The Great Western Hospital site is currently very busy, which means that there can sometimes be a queue to enter the car parks. 

“To mitigate this, we have recently installed a new parking system for visitor car parks, which uses Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), improved payment machines and more payment options, including paying on exit at the barrier.

But one person reported: “The problem is the payment machines. One is not working. One is not recognising number plates. One won’t take card payments so people are struggling to pay and get out therefore holding up the flow. 

“There are people there helping and one of the machines was being fixed as we left.”

When the new ANPR system came in last month, it promised ‘better traffic management across the site, with fewer queues building up and more people able to park quickly and efficiently when arriving at the hospital’.

The hospital spokesperson continued: “Traffic flow is managed daily and, at busier times, parking attendants who work for the Trust’s car parking team support with directing cars to available spaces.

“Ambulances arriving on site with blue lights and sirens have a different route to use around the hospital site, meaning they do not wait in any queues to access the Emergency Department.

"There is also plenty of space for cars to move over should they need to, and we have not experienced issues of patients arriving on ambulances being held up due to traffic.”