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

[Pete Owens]

parastes, of course ... get free parking.

Quite

[roubaixtuesday]

No, Pete Owens. When I go to the hospital, I bike it. but many of my friends working in the NHS who are already struggling to live on paltry salaries, are hit with an additional tax on going to work. Managers and other such parastes, of course, get company cars, free petrol and free parking.

I am mystified why the NHS should subsidise driving to work.

If subsidy there is to be, surely car share, cycling, walking, public transport should all be ahead of driving in the queue?

[Cyril Haearn]

Typically, where are large hospitals? Often on the fringe of town?

Two near me are in town, they are large campi, (I understand hospitals have to be big), lots of buses stop nearby

Are some hospitals outwith the cities they serve?

[diapason]

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.

[Pete Owens]

Well we were specifically discussing Taunton hospital - which is here:https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%C2%B000'42.0%22N+3%C2%B007'09.3%22W/@51.0115269,-3.122738,1407m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m17!1m10!4m9!1m3!2m2!1d-3.1192363!2d51.011655!1m3!2m2!1d-3.1049678!2d51.0148273!3e3!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d51.0116631!4d-3.1192602
Surrounded by residential areas within walking distance, a 4 minute bus journey from the town centre and within a 20 minute cycle ride from the furthest extremity of the town.

[Vorpal]

It isn't safe for women to be cycling alone during the middle of the night.

Do you mean that many women feel unsafe cycling alone at night?

In many areas, I (a woman) feel safer cycling at night because there is much less traffic. That was certainly true of the area where my local hospital was when I lived in Essex.

[pete75]

They do it at Taunton hospital too. Poor nursing (and other) staff, working unsocial hours, public transport a joke, too far away to bike - forced to pay a huge sum from their meagre wages just to park their cars at work! Terrible for patients and visitors too. All to fund the PFI contracts introduced by the LABOUR party under Anthony B.LIAR. Utter disgrace to our country.

PFI was introduced by a Conservative government under John Major.

[mjr]

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.

Even where that is so (and Taunton's is not isolated), it seems a better idea to charge for parking in general and then issue part or full exemption permits to the minority living too far to cycle and off-PT-network or working unserved times.

[pwa]

Thankfully here in Wales it is (with a very few exceptions) free to park at hospitals. Remember what hospitals are for. They are for the sick, and those visiting the sick. They are visited by people at the lowest point in their life. My own visits to hospitals have mostly been to support family members with serious conditions. When my Dad died a couple of years ago I ferried my elderly Mum to be with him dozens of times, to the three different hospitals he was in before he went. I'd take her in the morning, leave her there to be with him through the day, then pick her up in the evening. Then the same the next day, and the next, and the next... It was gruelling for all of us. Public transport wasn't a practical option, and frankly when people are suffering in that way the normal concerns over car use should be dropped.

My son is a student nurse and I don't think he would get to and from his unpaid work placements easily without his little car. The buses would not be running when he would need them, besides which they would add hours to his working day. Shifts can go on for twelve hours. Hard work for the good of the patients and, in his case, unpaid because he is a student.

[mjr]

Thankfully here in Wales it is (with a very few exceptions) free to park at hospitals. Remember what hospitals are for. They are for the sick, and those visiting the sick. They are visited by people at the lowest point in their life. My own visits to hospitals have mostly been to support family members with serious conditions.

Don't fall into the trap of generalising your situation to everyone. There's a lot of us visiting hospitals regularly who can use public transport, walk or cycle. Why should the likes of us be encouraged to clutter up car parks and obstruct the sick who need them more?

When people are suffering in that way the normal concerns over car use should be dropped, but surely that does not making it all First Come First Served and all able-bodied workers being encouraged to use the least healthy mode of transport and take a big chunk of the spaces wanted by the sick even if they have alternatives?

[Rob Archer]

I'd feel more comfortable about this if they also made bus services to hospitals free. Many of us don't have the option of driving to the hospital and, if we're not old or registered as disabled,have to pay often-extortionate bus fares. When I was recovering from a nasty bout of pneumonia a few years ago and couldn't cycle I was paying nearly £3 per visit in bus fares at a time when car parking was still only £2 for 3 hours.

[Tangled Metal]

They do it at Taunton hospital too. Poor nursing (and other) staff, working unsocial hours, public transport a joke, too far away to bike - forced to pay a huge sum from their meagre wages just to park their cars at work! Terrible for patients and visitors too. All to fund the PFI contracts introduced by the LABOUR party under Anthony B.LIAR. Utter disgrace to our country.

PFI was introduced by a Conservative government under John Major.

But most of them were started under Blair I think you'll find. The Tory scum didn't have long enough under Major to set many up. It was the saintly Labour under leader Blair that negotiated most of them.

If you want to attribute the blame for all PFI to the Tories who came up with the idea then by the same logic the NHS is a Liberal party creation. Or we can keep on with alternative facts and blame/ credit according to our politics.

[pwa]

Thankfully here in Wales it is (with a very few exceptions) free to park at hospitals. Remember what hospitals are for. They are for the sick, and those visiting the sick. They are visited by people at the lowest point in their life. My own visits to hospitals have mostly been to support family members with serious conditions.

Don't fall into the trap of generalising your situation to everyone. There's a lot of us visiting hospitals regularly who can use public transport, walk or cycle. Why should the likes of us be encouraged to clutter up car parks and obstruct the sick who need them more?

When people are suffering in that way the normal concerns over car use should be dropped, but surely that does not making it all First Come First Served and all able-bodied workers being encouraged to use the least healthy mode of transport and take a big chunk of the spaces wanted by the sick even if they have alternatives?

It may differ from one place to another but around here the hospitals are not in town centre locations and easy to get to. My nearest (which one might not be sent to if one's condition was not one of its specialisms) is only about six miles away but that means two buses, one of which runs once an hour, does not run on Sunday, and you can add an hour each way to the time it would take by car. If one was working there that could mean a twelve hour shift with an hour of bus travel / bus station waiting at each end of the shift. Except that getting from my village to the hospital for a 7am start would be too early for the buses. It just isn't practical. And that is true for villages all around the town where the hospital is. The town is small so the staff will come from a wider area. And once at work the staff will probably not be using their cars for another twelve hours.

[Mike Sales]

I have been visiting our local hospital daily for treatment.
I am quite lucky in that I have a bus stop outside my house, change at the bus station and good service to the hospital. Free by bus pass, but £8.20 when I misplaced it, and a bit of a slog when I started on crutches but now I am much fitter.
Rather easier by car when I had to beg a lift on Sundays, but I prefer the bus for several reasons.
I have cycled to appointments (about 10 miles) when fitter.
I note there is a cycle shelter and park, but the shelter is much too small for the number of parked bikes, which is not large, maybe twenty in a corner of acres of car park. This is in a town which is flat as a table.
I was an in-patient at Nuffield Orthopaedic, Oxford for a time, and as it happens my ward was above the very large room given over to cycle parking. I could not observe security, but the facility was well used.

I give these notes to add to the debate and for others to draw their own conclusions.

I see that Rob Archer has added his experience, and I agree; I have always thought that if car parking at a hospital is going to be free, then so should the buses going to it be.

[Pete Owens]

Remember what hospitals are for. They are for the sick,

And what sick people need is medical treatment and care - while some here appear to think that resources are better diverted from that to car storage facilities.