The Great Western Hospital issued an alert last week as patients faced longer A&E waiting times than normal because the service was 'extremely busy'.

Patients have complained on social media about long delays, asking for more beds, a second hospital or expanding Swindon's hospital.

We asked readers whether the hospital should be bigger. Here’s what you told us on Facebook...

Marcus Wilkins: “It should be but no chance that SBC have sold all the land surrounding the hospital for housing and leaving no room for expansion.”

Maria Lynch: “That’s because idiots go there when they should just go to pharmacy or doctors.”

Neil Michael Robinson: “Definitely. I faced a ridiculous wait a few weeks ago from 7pm to 5.30am and still hadn’t been seen – and it was urgent too.”

Julie Benjamin: “It’s time to stop pretending this is a temporary thing. The NHS is broken, and it has been for a very long time, the damage is particularly acute in our region.”

Sandra Strange: “All well and good to increase the size but you’ll also need the extra staff to compensate for the extra size, wards etc.”

Sophie Peers-Weaver: “It needs to be much bigger. I went last week in the early hours of the morning and I was so reluctant to go because I know how overstretched it is, I felt so awful for even going but I’m glad I did because I needed to. So, as well as people overusing it, people with genuine need are more reluctant to use it.”

Adam Poole: “The biggest problem is people going to A&E when they simply don’t need to. I know people who have been there for headaches, sore throats and stomach pains…”

Ruth Short Coughlin: “We can’t keep building so many houses in Swindon without building a new hospital or expanding the old one to cope with the extra people that will inevitably need NHS care. It’s really not rocket science – the hospital will become too small for the population it covers.”

Amjad Qazi: “People here are complaining about some people going to the emergency department when it isn’t an emergency! But it’s has always been the same. People haven’t changed. Services are a lot worse now than ever before.

“The NHS isn’t being funded properly. It is deliberately stretched and run down so people get fed up which will slowly enable crooked politicians to sell it off to their mates.

“Also, this hospital was never big enough to start with. We need another hospital on the other side of Swindon to ease the burden.”

Shelley Louise Pope: “A&E should be bigger, more wards need adding, more nurses are needed to accommodate but that won’t happen unless bursaries are reintroduced.”

Collett Bird: “It isn’t big enough for the size of the town.”

Summer Murray: “I was up earlier wand I was disgusted with he amount of elderlies just led in beds in the hallway. It’s ridiculous.”

Brian Baker: “They knew from the start that this hospital was too small, and ever since all we hear is people moaning about it being to small, well get on and build another hospital on the other side of Swindon or stop Swindon expanding.”

Nicola Moore: “I get it… but a second hospital won’t stop idiots going to that one as well for a cough, cold or any other stupid reason.”

Daniel Ferguson: “Build a bigger part to the hospital or build a second hospital. Which of these will work? Simple. None of them, NHS staff is underfunded, underpaid and understaffed there isn’t enough doctors and nurse to make it better. People should not be allowed to sign in if they got a little sneeze and be rejected to the walk-in centre.”