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

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

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I am a cyclist first and occasional driver, I imagine that description fits many / most of us, I hope so. Sadly I have driven a lot in the past, even in London

I think Pete Owens is right, driving and parking a vehicle should be made less attractive to influence choices in where one lives and works. Halving vehicle mileage in a few years would be possible

I rarely pay for parking mind, I try to leave my vehicle on the edge of town, then I gladly walk several kms

This thread is good, it has helped me form and develop my opinion

It would be good if members could write shorter pieces like I try to :)
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

reohn2 wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:Lots of people who work in town can park a bit further out for free, then enjoy a few minutes walk to work
There is often plenty of space to park in the inner suburbs

I have no problem with out of town hubs with good public transport links,and TBF it's becoming more prevalent in some towns,but not all and there's a problem with unsocial hours transport from those hubs.


I much prefer to walk, after sitting in my vehicle with my climate I do not want to get in an air-conditioned bus

If I took the bus I might have no exercise at all the whole day
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Tangled Metal
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Tangled Metal »

I just see paying for parking at an expense for using a car. Perhaps car use is so important to nhs workers that at should stop charging them VED and the fuel levy on petrol / diesel should be knocked off at the till when they pay.

Afterall they need the car for their unsocial hours and important work. Might as well go the whole way and cancel more costs of using a car for them. Unless you see a boundary line with subsidies, perks and handouts.

At £0.92 per day, well as an employed person I'd be quite happy to pay it. I'm getting a benefit from car parking, why not pay for benefits? If you don't it's a perk and IMHO should be taxed some way or other.
Tangled Metal
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Tangled Metal »

Cyril Haearn wrote:It would be good if members could write shorter pieces like I try to :)

I edited my post after reading this. I couldn't shorten it (well I could but that would change it too much). Instead I try to split it into shorter paragraphs. Easier to read and quote (although unlikely because I spout as much rubbish as most on here do on political threads).
pwa
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by pwa »

Cyril Haearn wrote:I am a cyclist first and occasional driver, I imagine that description fits many / most of us, I hope so. Sadly I have driven a lot in the past, even in London

I think Pete Owens is right, driving and parking a vehicle should be made less attractive to influence choices in where one lives and works. Halving vehicle mileage in a few years would be possible

I rarely pay for parking mind, I try to leave my vehicle on the edge of town, then I gladly walk several kms

This thread is good, it has helped me form and develop my opinion

It would be good if members could write shorter pieces like I try to :)


Hint on brevity taken :lol:
reohn2
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by reohn2 »

Pete Owens wrote:
It never ceases to amaze me that you are just as likely to encounter motorists special pleading on a cycle forum as you are in the pages of the D****y M**l.


By the back door.

Read my posts again.
Last edited by reohn2 on 24 Jan 2018, 9:34am, edited 1 time in total.
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reohn2
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by reohn2 »

pwa wrote:........... you are deluded in the extreme if you think most cyclists don't use cars. We do.

Not use cars but need to for most,the reasons are many but one major one as you point out is a very poor public transport system.
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reohn2
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by reohn2 »

Cyril Haearn wrote:I much prefer to walk, after sitting in my vehicle with my climate I do not want to get in an air-conditioned bus

If I took the bus I might have no exercise at all the whole day

Not everyone can walk a few kms,not everyone has good public transport links,not everyone cycles.
People don't cycle in the UK because of a lack of facilities and the bullying nature of our roads.
Last edited by reohn2 on 24 Jan 2018, 9:34am, edited 1 time in total.
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

reohn2 wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:I much prefer to walk, after sitting in my vehicle with my climate I do not want to get in an air-conditioned bus

If I took the bus I might have no exercise at all the whole day

Not everyone can walk a few kms,not everyone has good public transpoert links,not everyone cycles.
People don't cycle in the UK because of a lack of facilities and the bullying nature of our roads.


Not everyone can walk but many who can choose not to
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reohn2
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by reohn2 »

Cyril Haearn wrote:
reohn2 wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:I much prefer to walk, after sitting in my vehicle with my climate I do not want to get in an air-conditioned bus

If I took the bus I might have no exercise at all the whole day

Not everyone can walk a few kms,not everyone has good public transpoert links,not everyone cycles.
People don't cycle in the UK because of a lack of facilities and the bullying nature of our roads.


Not everyone can walk but many who can choose not to

I agree,but we're drifting from the subject matter which parking charges for NHS staff,see my other posts.

Following the drift...
If the transport system was joined up affordable and frequent enough many people would use it.
If cycling facilities where upto standard and given priority it should have,people would use the bike for transport.
In short the system is loaded.
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Cyril Haearn
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I think hospitals have to be big, it would be great if there was a cottage hospital in every suburb but they have to big like Morriston that serves a huge geographical area

Anyone with medical knowledge care to explain why?

Diolch
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Cyril Haearn wrote:I think hospitals have to be big, it would be great if there was a cottage hospital in every suburb but they have to big like Morriston that serves a huge geographical area

Anyone with medical knowledge care to explain why?

Diolch


Don't need medical knowledge really.
Covering a larger population you get more instances of any kind of condition. This means that rather than a cottage hospital seeing one instance of ${condition} a year and therefore getting very little experience you get a larger place seeing many more.
You also have more practitioners in one location, meaning that you have access to second opinions/consults and specialists in ${condition} rather than the generalists who would be needed in a cottage hospital.


There is nothing special in terms of medicine here, it's pure effects of scale.
There is of course an argument that this is fine, but we should have more 'cottage' A&E/walk-in departments, which are fundamentally different in nature to the 'big hospital' dynamic.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
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Bonefishblues
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Bonefishblues »

[XAP]Bob wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:I think hospitals have to be big, it would be great if there was a cottage hospital in every suburb but they have to big like Morriston that serves a huge geographical area

Anyone with medical knowledge care to explain why?

Diolch


Don't need medical knowledge really.
Covering a larger population you get more instances of any kind of condition. This means that rather than a cottage hospital seeing one instance of ${condition} a year and therefore getting very little experience you get a larger place seeing many more.
You also have more practitioners in one location, meaning that you have access to second opinions/consults and specialists in ${condition} rather than the generalists who would be needed in a cottage hospital.


There is nothing special in terms of medicine here, it's pure effects of scale.
There is of course an argument that this is fine, but we should have more 'cottage' A&E/walk-in departments, which are fundamentally different in nature to the 'big hospital' dynamic.

I have very recent and very personal experience here in the Oxford area of the OU Trust's two hospitals.

People have fought very hard to save the Horton Hospital in Banbury as a whole and also its particular departments, but having been admitted to that hospital and then transferred on to the John Radcliffe in Oxford I can absolutely see the difference that scale and investment made. I've changed my view as a result.

I do see the case for having small local clinic-based interventions too (and much else besides), but the middle ground, as it were, I don't see.

ETA
I also noticed a difference in the staff, too.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

How were the staff different?

I think people should be encouraged and helped to be healthier so fewer hospitals are needed

But even we healthy cyclists die, there is an enormous need for health care towards the end
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Bonefishblues
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Re: £220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

Post by Bonefishblues »

Cyril Haearn wrote:How were the staff different?

I think people should be encouraged and helped to be healthier so fewer hospitals are needed

But even we healthy cyclists die, there is an enormous need for health care towards the end

With one notable exception, staff seemed very glum and down (and in one case totally exhausted at the end of an 18 hour shift), and it was very hard to get attention from them. My medication was forgotten, and when I reminded the Nurse I was told it wasn't due - took me well over an hour to get it. I was wrongly diagnosed (and worried stupid) by a locum who was not a specialist in the field. Nobody explained anything to me. An Anaesthetist* insisted on putting a second stent in because someone else had stented me somewhere he personally didn't like, not because in any way the stent was deficient.

*same Anaesthetist whose first breezy intervention was "Don't worry if we need to resuscitate you, I'll make sure it doesn't hurt" - that one was a real astonishing** moment in the context of not knowing what was going on...

It just wasn't a great experience tbh, and the contrast could not have been greater upon transfer.

**Insert a more Anglo Saxon term here...
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