Patients could have to face heavy traffic or a long Tube journey if cancer treatment services for borough patients are moved to Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith.

Moving services from Northwood’s Mount Vernon to the hospital in Fulham Palace Road is one of the options being considered by health officials.

This week Gazette journalists made the journey from our office in Baker’s Road, Uxbridge, one using public transport and the other a car, to see what the move could mean for patients.

At the moment it takes people 30 minutes to get from Uxbridge and 14 minutes by car.

To get to Charing Cross Hospital it took twice as long by public transport and five times longer in the car.

Reporter Elsa McLaren made the journey on a Piccadilly line train from Uxbridge direct to Hammersmith, while photographer Toby Vandevelde tackled the journey by car.

They set off at 2pm on Wednesday avoiding all rush hour traffic, crowds and congestion, which could double the length of time spent travelling.

On the Tube there were no delays, but the journey took about 50 minutes. There was little room and other passengers made it uncomfortable – a woman reading a newspaper kept wafting the pages into our reporter’s face.

From Hammersmith station it is a 10-minute walk along a very busy road, or a taxi ride costing around £4.50. The total journey took one hour.

By car the journey, along Uxbridge Road, The Parkway, Hayes, and the M4, was much slower.

Our photographer hit traffic tailbacks a few times – on a section of the M4 traffic was slowed to 30mph and at Hogarth Roundabout he queued for about 10 minutes.

In Hammersmith Broadway the traffic was heavy and it took him 15 minutes to drive one mile.

But having worked in the area previously, he knew these conditions were reasonable compared to the tailbacks faced by drivers in the morning.

The total journey time was one hour 15 minutes.