£220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

[pwa]

Only those with the means to run a car and the ability to drive one. I realise that to car owners these are the only people of any importance.

Or those like my Mum, who get ferried around by relatives.

If those relatives can afford to run a car they can afford the parking fees.

Make the sick pay. How kind hearted. Your empathy knows no bounds. I would have thought hospitals would be the very last place to have such a harsh policy but some of you here see them as the first place. Make the sick and those visiting the dying (as I was last year) pay for being so lazy as not to choose spending two hours extra on travel each day. Nice. (Still got the Merc?)

[The utility cyclist]

Many hospitals are on the edge of towns and nurses etc work unsocial hours. There is little or no public transport at night and certainly not to rural areas. It isn't safe for women to be cycling alone during the middle of the night. Car sharing is hardly possible with shifts starting and finishing during the night, and staff coming from a huge rural area.

Are they, how many of the big city/town hospitals are 'out of town'? Norwich I know is on the ring road but it's hardly miles out the way for most residents, most big cities have their main hospitals within easy reach of residential areas.

Local to me Stevenage Hospital is on the edge of the town which is very spread out like many of the new towns but at least does have a segregated path from some places, at the very most from the extreme other side of the town it's 4.8 miles, I'd say most hospitals are within easy cycle distance for a very large ortion of residential areas.
There needs to be more incentive and better access/storage/facilities plus better joined up transport thinking.

[gazza_d]

Free parking is not a right anywhere.
It is a privilege to those who drive and have cars which where I live is about 50%.
Free parking in NHS would be a nightmare as car parks would be overrun. They are now with paid parking.
Car parks would still need managing and maintaining. That would take money from frontline care, and the NHS has barely enough money or resource anyway.
Most NHS staff work office hours (not just office staff, but outpatient clinics etc)
Most NHS staff live < 5 miles from work
Most of those don't combine trips or share vehicles.
Most of them could cycle or take buses for example. They choose to drive and pay.
(I work in NHs and have had access to travel surveys to check figures)

If we are going to talk about NHs can we discuss why so many trusts are so apathetic towards cycling? With barely any facilities for staff who do cycle or access to things like cycle2work to enable and encourage staff to mode switch?

[pete75]

Or those like my Mum, who get ferried around by relatives.

If those relatives can afford to run a car they can afford the parking fees.

Make the sick pay. How kind hearted. Your empathy knows no bounds. I would have thought hospitals would be the very last place to have such a harsh policy but some of you here see them as the first place. Make the sick and those visiting the dying (as I was last year) pay for being so lazy as not to choose spending two hours extra on travel each day. Nice. (Still got the Merc?)

From what you're saying it's not the sick who are paying but those who are driving a sick person around. The NHS budget is limited and it's far better it's actually spent on treating the sick rather than subsiding free parking.
I find much of what you've said not only insulting but also bringing back very bad memories. We personally spent a lot on car parking at Addenbrookes when our 3 month old son was there for several weeks dying of a brain tumour. A bit of money on car parking was the last thing on our minds. Why do you assume none but yourself has ever visited anyone sick or dying? You're a lovely person aren't you?

[reohn2]

PWA,you're spot on.
Hospital parking should be free or atleast the fee should nominal,and NHS staff should not have to pay to park their car at work,end of.
It's a disgrace
I'm wondering how many people on this thread have to pay to park on a works car park?

[pete75]

PWA,you're spot on.Hospital parting should be free or atleast the fee should nominal,and NHS staff should have to pay to park their car at work,end of.
It's a disgrace
I'm wondering how many people on this thread have to pay to park on a works car park?

Well we did. It was free until about ten years ago then they started charging £700 a year if you wanted a parking permit.

[pq]

Almost everywhere I've ever worked has either:

Offered paid parking to staff. I've never paid because I cycle, but the parking has always been subsidised, wrongly in my view.
Offered no parking at all. So you pay to park elsewhere if that's how you choose to travel.

Maybe that's becasue I've mostly worked in town/city centres.

I really don't see why that's a problem, and why anyone thinks money should be diverted from patient care to pay for it.

If there's an issue here it's that some NHS staff are grossly underpaid - that does need sorting.

[pwa]

Many hospitals are on the edge of towns and nurses etc work unsocial hours. There is little or no public transport at night and certainly not to rural areas. It isn't safe for women to be cycling alone during the middle of the night. Car sharing is hardly possible with shifts starting and finishing during the night, and staff coming from a huge rural area.

Are they, how many of the big city/town hospitals are 'out of town'? Norwich I know is on the ring road but it's hardly miles out the way for most residents, most big cities have their main hospitals within easy reach of residential areas.

Local to me Stevenage Hospital is on the edge of the town which is very spread out like many of the new towns but at least does have a segregated path from some places, at the very most from the extreme other side of the town it's 4.8 miles, I'd say most hospitals are within easy cycle distance for a very large ortion of residential areas.
There needs to be more incentive and better access/storage/facilities plus better joined up transport thinking.

I can only speak about the hospitals I know, and all I can say is that of the four I have had to visit a lot over the last couple of years, three are about twenty miles away and seriously arduous to get to from my home by public transport. And as I was taking my elderly mother on many of those visits, twice a day and seven days a week, adding an hour to the journey at each end and waiting at bus shelters in the rain was out of the question. The other hospital is closer but not near a bus station so still not really practical to get to by bus. Hospitals these days are not local. Depending on the patient's illness they may end up being treated at the nearest hospital but they are likely to end up at a hospital some distance away that specialises in their condition.

[millimole]

Until I retired 7 years ago I was a senior NHS manager, having been a Healthcare Scientist by profession.
For those who want to know about these things my last job was on band 8b - I reported to my manager who reported at Director level. I worked in Compliance, Litigation, Complaints, and Patient Safety.

In my trust staff parking was rationed because of the limited size of each of the three sites it operated on. If you increased staff parking, you decreased patient and visitors parking. Staff paid for parking, and the cost of parking was linked to salary. I honestly can't remember how much I would have been paying, but I think it would have been around £75 per month for an 'off site' space a considerable walk away from the main site. Only clinical staff (which I clearly wasn't) working shifts got 'on site' spaces.
Further rationing was due to the waiting list, and this was determined by a points based system based on your role, shift pattern, and seniority. You could lose a space you'd had for years iif someone leapfrogged you on points.

The trust worked closely with the local bus companies (although I gather this has now broken down) and put on its own public cross-site bus service. Secure cycle (and motorcycle) parking was massively increased although the cycle routes to two of the sites were dire.

To answer a point upthread - I never heard of any manager or director of an NHS trust getting, or being offered a 'company car'. Until the 1980s (maybe later) 'lease cars' were available for those who did considerable work mileages - but these were an alternating to claiming work mileage allowance for people like District Nurses. Salary sacrifice car schemes have become popular since I left.

Car parks are not 'free goods'. Visitors & staff expect a decent surface, marked spaces, security and everything that goes with a modern car park. If a trust is not recouping the cost of the security and maintenance from the users of the car park then the money would come from the patient care budget.

It was like my last manager job - you can say "too many managers" all you like, but if someone like me hadn't been dealing with the regulators, the suppliers, the lawyers, the complainants - then who would? It would have been someone who would otherwise have been caring for a sick person somewhere else. Resources are finite.

[amaferanga]

PWA,you're spot on.
Hospital parking should be free or atleast the fee should nominal,and NHS staff should not have to pay to park their car at work,end of.
It's a disgrace
I'm wondering how many people on this thread have to pay to park on a works car park?

Should the NHS also subsidise public transport for staff and buy bikes for those that don't drive to work? Why should those that don't drive to work subsidise those that do? Providing parking costs money and should be paid for by the user.

For the record, all three NHS Trusts that I've worked for charge for parking. I don't hear any complaints because most people realise that it costs the Trust money to provide the parking and they'd rather the limited budget was spent on patient care. Would you rather a Trust had a new MRI scanner to speed up the diagnosis of cancers, or provided free parking?

All Trusts are currently trying to encourage more sustainable transport so free parking would be a massive mistake.

[Bonefishblues]

I suspect it's a more subtle and sophisticated calculation than that, given the undoubted positive impact on patient outcomes of visits from friends and family

[pwa]

I suspect it's a more subtle and sophisticated calculation than that, given the undoubted positive impact on patient outcomes of visits from friends and family

In recent years I have spent a lot of time using hospital car parks and, especially in the evenings, I saw families getting out of cars to go and visit loved ones, to spend some time with them and bring them books, food or whatever. Like it or not the car parks are part of how a hospital does its job of minimising suffering.

[pete75]

I suspect it's a more subtle and sophisticated calculation than that, given the undoubted positive impact on patient outcomes of visits from friends and family

Would you really want visits from people who'd only come to see you if they could park for free?

[reohn2]

To answer the questions about costs,a car park is built once at time of building the hospital,that cost is a provision for staff and patients/visitors.
There,'s very little maintenance costs which a small minimal cost to patients and visitors would cover.
The only reason there's a lack equipment and staff in our hospitals is due to a lack government funding and nothing to do with car parks,car parks are funding an underfunded system!

[mjr]

To answer the questions about costs,a car park is built once at time of building the hospital,that cost is a provision for staff and patients/visitors.

I struggle to think of any nearby hospital which hasn't had its car park rebuilt or extended in the last 20 years. Even the new Norfolk&Norwich has sort of done that by taking over the NW (Easton) P&R for its exclusive use.

There,'s very little maintenance costs which a small minimal cost to patients and visitors would cover.

What makes hospital car parks immune to the usual maintenance costs?

The only reason there's a lack equipment and staff in our hospitals is due to a lack government funding and nothing to do with car parks,car parks are funding an underfunded system!

Agree on the low funding but doubt it's funded by car parks in any significant way. Many hospital car parks seem to be leased out to private firms who keep any profits, often on contracts that leave the NHS paying some of the maintenance costs!