£220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
The big question for me is why are NHS staff so routinely singled out for charges?
A universal nation wide car park levy for all or none. If you decide to back a universal levy, invest it in real alternatives. The footprint of the site where I work is probably 2/3 car park, 1/3 building. The cost of renting this land is on the employer and most would give this aspect little thought.
A universal nation wide car park levy for all or none. If you decide to back a universal levy, invest it in real alternatives. The footprint of the site where I work is probably 2/3 car park, 1/3 building. The cost of renting this land is on the employer and most would give this aspect little thought.
Supporter of the A10 corridor cycling campaign serving Royston to Cambridge http://a10corridorcycle.com. Never knew gardening secateurs were an essential part of the on bike tool kit until I took up campaigning.....
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
iandriver wrote:The big question for me is why are NHS staff so routinely singled out for charges?
They're not. I worked for a large employer around 2000. Big car park (maybe a bit over two football pitches in size) but it was pay to park. Only the chairman, chief exec, disabled drivers and a few others (mostly with work vehicles) had free parking spaces. My next employer had no car park and the one after that had free car park but maybe only for a fifth of demand if that, so both of those, you're using nearby paid car parks.
The main difference with NHS staff is there are a lot of them, seen as doing noble work and being fairly well-organised. I still don't think we should encourage them to pollute hospital zones with private cars, though.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
mjr wrote:reohn2 wrote: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.
And how much money has that trust raked in from car park charges ?
A damned sight more than the maintenance costs.Car parks can be and nice little "earner" for underfunded hospitals.
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?
I didn't say there was no maintenance costs just that maintenance costs are minimal,that would be covered by a nominal charge to patients and visitors,and not some of the hiked up charges currently at some hospitals we've been patients at.
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.[/quote]
I beg to differ if the chargerps go direct to the trust.
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!
That's more like what is really happeneping.
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
pete75 wrote:Bonefishblues wrote: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?
Stop the silliness Pete!
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
"Car parks cost nothing to maintain" is the biggest pile of poo going.
Firstly people now expect things like CCTV for their car parks when vehicle is hit or broken into.
Secondly car parks do wear out with amount of traffic
They need treating when it's icy and cleaning when mucky.
They need managing otherwise people just dump cars anywhere.
Why have some driver got such a massive sense of entitlement that they expect services and facilities to be provided to them for free?
Do you expect free coffee as well, but tea drinkers would have to pay?
Driving has led to massive congestion, pollution which is estimated to be killing 40000 people a year. It also makes people inactive and fatter which leads to health issues which NHS has to bail out. T2 diabetes costs billions a year.
We should have mandatory parking charges everywhere not subsidise and encourage such a negative form of transport
(worked in NHs for almost 30 yrs. paid for parking pass for nearly 20 years, but switched to cycling and gave it back. Often use NHS from consumer side and happy to pay)
Firstly people now expect things like CCTV for their car parks when vehicle is hit or broken into.
Secondly car parks do wear out with amount of traffic
They need treating when it's icy and cleaning when mucky.
They need managing otherwise people just dump cars anywhere.
Why have some driver got such a massive sense of entitlement that they expect services and facilities to be provided to them for free?
Do you expect free coffee as well, but tea drinkers would have to pay?
Driving has led to massive congestion, pollution which is estimated to be killing 40000 people a year. It also makes people inactive and fatter which leads to health issues which NHS has to bail out. T2 diabetes costs billions a year.
We should have mandatory parking charges everywhere not subsidise and encourage such a negative form of transport
(worked in NHs for almost 30 yrs. paid for parking pass for nearly 20 years, but switched to cycling and gave it back. Often use NHS from consumer side and happy to pay)
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
The utility cyclist wrote:diapason wrote: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.
It doesn't follow that staff,patients and vistors are local or that they can get there easily.
There needs to be more incentive and better access/storage/facilities plus better joined up transport thinking.
That's more likely to be the problem,that and the fact that cycling isn't always possible for everyone,or for people needing to get to work in bad weather conditions.
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
reohn2 wrote:pete75 wrote:Bonefishblues wrote: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?
Stop the silliness Pete!
That's not silly. Some here are implying that parking charges put people off going to see a a hospital inpatient.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
mjr wrote: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!
I don't know what you regard as significant funding but Peterborough Hospital raises about £2 million a year through parking charges.
The hospital say
The trust also provides free car parking for visitors to the Bereavement Centre and patients with a long-term illness or a serious condition that needs regular treatment such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and haemodialysis.
It costs £2.60 to park from 30 minutes to three hours 30 minutes at the hospital, but reduced rates are offered in several circumstances, including for the main visitor to a critically or terminally ill patient, and relatives visiting a patient on a daily basis for longer than a week.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
reohn2 wrote:mjr wrote:reohn2 wrote: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.
And how much money has that trust raked in from car park charges ?
A damned sight more than the maintenance costs.Car parks can be and nice little "earner" for underfunded hospitals.
It's not possible to tell from the annual accounts. Car park ticket income is shown on its own line but expenses are merged into a number of other lines (including transport for the car park bus subsidy and premises for car park surface maintenance). There's also the PFI "mortgage" being paid on most of it. Please do an FoI request if you want exact numbers.
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?
I didn't say there was no maintenance costs just that maintenance costs are minimal,that would be covered by a nominal charge to patients and visitors,and not some of the hiked up charges currently at some hospitals we've been patients at.
Can you offer any evidence for that, please? From your local hospital maybe?
Last edited by mjr on 3 Dec 2019, 10:33am, edited 1 time in total.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
pete75 wrote:mjr wrote: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!
I don't know what you regard as significant funding but Peterborough Hospital raises about £2 million a year through parking charges.
Is that just income (broadly in line with the N&N - staff park free at N&N) or profit, though?
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
mjr wrote:pete75 wrote:mjr wrote: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!
I don't know what you regard as significant funding but Peterborough Hospital raises about £2 million a year through parking charges.
Is that just income (broadly in line with the N&N - staff park free at N&N) or profit, though?
Not sure. They say raised which would imply it's what's left after after any expenses.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
Putting up barriers, ticket machines, collecting the coins costs a lot too
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott
We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
pete75 wrote:reohn2 wrote:pete75 wrote:Would you really want visits from people who'd only come to see you if they could park for free?
Stop the silliness Pete!
That's not silly. Some here are implying that parking charges put people off going to see a a hospital inpatient.
I don't think they are,they're saying it's an unwelcome additional cost to visiting relatives or attending as outpatients.
But to get back to the OP NHS shouldn't have to pay to park at work,especially those on 'frontline' sevices such as doctors and nurses more so when they are working unsocial hours when there's little or no choice but the car.
I'm all for reducing car use but in some instances and profssions they're unavoidable,making staff pay in such circumstances is outrageous.
Example:- I've had two short stays in hospital in the past 3 years,nurses on othe wards in both instances were working 12hour shifts about 6am to 6pm and 6pm to 6am,not exactly ideal for spending an hour or more hnging around for buses at the beginning end of what is a stressful job.
As an aside,one trainee nurse on placement for 6 months who lived in Mosside Manchester had to travel to Wigan by bus and train a journey of 21/2hours each day either end of a 12 hour shift.
I asked her why she couldn't have been placed closer to home she told me she had to go where she was sent,and no bursary either.
To continue a little with this trainee nurse's story,her mother with herself and her brother had fled Ethiopia after her father had been killed.
After a few conversations it was apparent what a beautiful soul this young Muslim woman is,I hope she does well in her chosen profession
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
mjr wrote:iandriver wrote:The big question for me is why are NHS staff so routinely singled out for charges?
They're not. I worked for a large employer around 2000. Big car park (maybe a bit over two football pitches in size) but it was pay to park. Only the chairman, chief exec, disabled drivers and a few others (mostly with work vehicles) had free parking spaces. My next employer had no car park and the one after that had free car park but maybe only for a fifth of demand if that, so both of those, you're using nearby paid car parks.
The main difference with NHS staff is there are a lot of them, seen as doing noble work and being fairly well-organised. I still don't think we should encourage them to pollute hospital zones with private cars, though.
Of course you can think of specific examples where you can't park on site. The point is it's not universally implemented. The NHS is a government employer. I'm not aware all government employers charge for parking such as MOD bases, local authorities, doctors surgeries etc. I've worked in private industry all my life and have never had to pay for parking, the costs ware always bourn by the employer.
No on has suggested we should encourage them to pollute. One set of rules. Invest properly in alternatives.
Supporter of the A10 corridor cycling campaign serving Royston to Cambridge http://a10corridorcycle.com. Never knew gardening secateurs were an essential part of the on bike tool kit until I took up campaigning.....
Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.
mjr wrote:reohn2 wrote:mjr wrote: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.
And how much money has that trust raked in from car park charges ?
A damned sight more than the maintenance costs.Car parks can be and nice little "earner" for underfunded hospitals.
It's not possible to tell from the annual accounts. Car park ticket income is shown on its own line but expenses are merged into a number of other lines (including transport for the car park bus subsidy and premises for car park surface maintenance). There's also the PFI "mortgage" being paid on most of it. Please do an FoI request if you want exact numbers.
I'd say that's your job
What makes hospital car parks immune to the usual maintenance costs?
I didn't say there was no maintenance costs just that maintenance costs are minimal,that would be covered by a nominal charge to patients and visitors,and not some of the hiked up charges currently at some hospitals we've been patients at.
Can you offer any evidence for that, please? From your local hospital maybe?[/quote]
Yes,our local hospital car pack hasn't been resurfaced or upgraded at all certainly within in the past 15 years.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden