# Nurses charged almost £200 a month just to park their cars at work



## Northerner (Jul 13, 2014)

Nurses are being charged almost £200 a month just to park their cars at work.

NHS trusts are raking in up to £3.9million a year in parking fees from their own staff as well as *outpatients and visiting relatives, a Sunday Mirror investigation reveals.

And at one hospital more than HALF the penalty notices handed out were slapped on the cars of its own workers.

Nursing unions say hard-up members report rushing to finish shifts to avoid fines. Many workers have no choice but to drive because of shift times.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nurses-charged-200-month-just-3848184


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## Redkite (Jul 13, 2014)

That is terrible


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## trophywench (Jul 13, 2014)

It's very difficult when the hospital don't run the carpark, eg Uni Hospital Cov & Warwick.  The only way they could get the dosh to build the place was by doing things like that.

Nightmare.


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## Sally71 (Jul 13, 2014)

Hospital car park prices do tend to be extortionate. However, when daughter was in hospital having her appendix out we paid something like £20 for a 1-week pass, which meant we could park the car there all day every day if we wanted and not get charged through the nose (I stayed in the hospital but hubby was coming and going, sometimes when he was there I would nip out for a while).  We probably would have paid more like £10 per day without that pass.  There was also a 1-month pass available which wasn't much more.  Can't other hospitals offer something like that?


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

If half of them peddled to work the car parks would be good for the people go because there ill ?  If I thought it cost me £200 to park I would Walk, Get the bus, or get a taxi for that much


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## Mark T (Jul 13, 2014)

I have a friend who was a nurse that wanted to go back after her children, but because she had to start after the main shift in order to drop her children at school, the staff car park was always full and the main hospital public car park is about £2/hour or so.


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

Have you noticed people want to be right outside the front door !  That's the paper shop/Supermarket/pub/hosp & they wont walk that 400yds from outside ?


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## Aoife (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> If half of them peddled to work the car parks would be good for the people go because there ill ?  If I thought it cost me £200 to park I would Walk, Get the bus, or get a taxi for that much



I'm a nurse, I live 8 miles away therefore not walking distance.  I start work at 7.30, I have to be at work about 7.15 to give me time to get changed, that means travelling to work in the dark throughout the winter down some horrible roads therefore I wouldn't feel safe cycling.  I do 13 hour shifts, therefore would be travelling home in the dark.  A bus would take about 1.5 hours (including waiting to change buses) this is in London where the transport system is better than most places.  A tube and a bus takes slightly less time but still looking at over an hour.  This doesn't even take into account night shifts which are the same length with the same travelling time however with sleep deprivation every minute I get in bed counts!

The only way I can really get to work is by car.  Thankfully my hospital owns it's parking and I'm only charged £20 / month for the permit.  It's still £20 I'd rather not have to pay just to go to work though


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

You all must get paid to much !  £200 a month !  You could park two streets away & get there 5mins earlier.    People wont walk the ten steps to the paper shop.  How if I said I would take £200 off your mortgage. Its the same !


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## Northerner (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> You all must get paid to much !  £200 a month !  You could park two streets away & get there 5mins earlier.    People wont walk the ten steps to the paper shop.  How if I said I would take £200 off your mortgage. Its the same !



No, I have to disagree with this. The hours nurses work and the state of public transport these days mean that they need to get to and from work safely. There is no sense in charging them so much to park


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## Aoife (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> You all must get paid to much !  £200 a month !  You could park two streets away & get there 5mins earlier.    People wont walk the ten steps to the paper shop.  How if I said I would take £200 off your mortgage. Its the same !



You obviously don't live in an area with rediculous parking restrictions and residents parking permits


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## Mark T (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> ...You could park two streets away & get there 5mins earlier...


Not at the hospital near me they can't.  The council double yellowed pretty much every street near the hospital or put parking permit only zones.

Considering my hospital is a good 5 miles out of the town, I don't see how they can justify charging even a single penny for the car park to visitors (let alone staff).

My local council has a policy that the number of allocated parking spaces can only be about 75% of the building employee count (or something similar).  Which means that all the extras have to park in the local streets - something that is not popular with the people who own those houses.


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

If I knew I had to start work at a certain time & the other 200 nurses. I would find out who would Car share etc.  The point of this is the £200 for parking the ----- Car. I work full time & I couldn't pay £200 a month. You can rent a nice property up here for £350 a month.  You could get a scooter or similar. It is an fortune to park. The car doesn't need to be there. Life has changed know one wants to walk anymore.


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## Aoife (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> If I knew I had to start work at a certain time & the other 200 nurses. I would find out who would Car share etc.  The point of this is the £200 for parking the ----- Car. I work full time & I couldn't pay £200 a month. You can rent a nice property up here for £350 a month.  You could get a scooter or similar. It is an fortune to park. The car doesn't need to be there. Life has changed know one wants to walk anymore.



You couldn't rent a garage for that in London!
Car sharing sounds good in principle but it doesn't work with variable shift patterns, you would have to find someone that not only lives near you but also works the exact same shifts as you every month, unless you are a 9-5er then thats near impossible.

If I could walk I would.


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

I have worked in Oxford st, Bond st, for months with a van to park full of tools, I used to walk the full length of oxfprd st to park cheaper.  I would not & could not pay £200 a month.  £2400 a year.  That's a bit. Have you seen those 3 wheel bikes where the two front wheels are less than a foot apart. You can drive on a car licence. Aprox £6000 new, 3yrs & paid for


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## Northerner (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> I have worked in Oxford st, Bond st, for months with a van to park full of tools, I used to walk the full length of oxfprd st to park cheaper.  I would not & could not pay £200 a month.  £2400 a year.  That's a bit. Have you seen those 3 wheel bikes where the two front wheels are less than a foot apart. You can drive on a car licence. Aprox £6000 new, 3yrs & paid for



Hobie, you're a bloke, I think it's a whole different ballgame for a woman alone during unsocial hours  I agree that the hospital ought to arrange carshare, or  some sort of staff transport system for their key staff. Even if it was £50 a month it's a lot out of a nurse's wages


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## HOBIE (Jul 13, 2014)

That's what I have been saying its stupid money to pay.  I would find a way to beat the system. I would not & could not pay the £200 to park the ---- car. At my local hosp I have never paid the car park fees. I walk nearly 1mile every time. It must be the way I was brought up.  If I couldn't walk yes you pay or you get a disabled bay ?


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## Northerner (Jul 13, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> That's what I have been saying its stupid money to pay.  I would find a way to beat the system. I would not & could not pay the £200 to park the ---- car. At my local hosp I have never paid the car park fees. I walk nearly 1mile every time. It must be the way I was brought up.  If I couldn't walk yes you pay or you get a disabled bay ?



I think we agree then. I have never parked a vehicle of any kind anywhere, apart from on driving lessons. Hospitals should not be charging employees huge sums for something that enables them to do their job. The point is that this sort of charge may actually be dissuading people from doing the jobs because it's simply not affordable and practical.


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## ypauly (Jul 14, 2014)

In Nottingham it's probably worse as they have additional charges.
http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/wpl


It astonishes me the fees and charges people will submit to just to get to work with London always being the worst. People that can't afford to live in the capital are forced to pay massive commuter costs with annual rail cards running into many thousands of pounds.

Surely making sure the population can get to work and benefit from it should be high on the agenda for any government.

My first act when I take over the world will be all public transport fares for those going to work are eliminated and paid for from the tax they pay instead.


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## Redkite (Jul 14, 2014)

Annual season ticket to London from my town is currently £4488 (works out at £374 per month, which is still cheaper than buying monthly season tickets, which are £431).  This is no good for part time workers, who must pay the daily fare of £26 plus London Transport fares on top!   and it's only a 31-35min journey from here to Euston!  I commuted for several years, and was fortunate enough to have an employer who gave me a loan for my annual season ticket.

Nurses and other essential services who are obliged to work early or late shifts should be entitled to free and safe parking.


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## HOBIE (Jul 14, 2014)

For nearly 3years I used to get up at 4. Drive all the way from Tyneside & work in the ctr of London. You couldn't drive along oxford st after 9. Yes I was getting paid for this but would not like to be doing it now. Wages or ways to improve qualifications that's the only thing that would get me to live down there


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## Northerner (Jul 14, 2014)

ypauly said:


> ...Surely making sure the population can get to work and benefit from it should be high on the agenda for any government.
> 
> My first act when I take over the world will be all public transport fares for those going to work are eliminated and paid for from the tax they pay instead.



I blame Thatcher. When I lived in Sheffield public transport was subsidised by the rates/council tax, meaning that fares were fixed at 1975 levels. Maximum fare to the very edge of the city was 14p, but most fares were 5/6p. Because the transport was so cheap you never had to worry about finding your fare, it was far more economically sensible to use public transport than a car, there were loads of frequent buses anywhere, people were able to take low-paid jobs across South Yorkshire because commuting costs were not a consideration. There was far less traffic with people not using their cars, so less pollution and no rush hour gridlock.

Thatcher then decided that the buses should be deregulated. In Sheffield this meant that fares increased by 2,000% overnight, bus companies started up using decrepit old vehicles competing on busy routes - they would drive past a stop that didn't have enough passengers to beat another bus to a busier stop, and they put out more pollution. People started using their cars instead and the roads got clogged. People could no longer afford to take low-paid jobs across town.

And did we save anything on our taxes? Of course not! Simply one of the most stupid moves ever taken, ruining something that worked really well for everyone. And what do we have now? Anywhere you go practically every bus is run by one or two companies - no competition, so no incentive to improve services and keep fares down.


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## Mark T (Jul 14, 2014)

HOBIE said:


> For nearly 3years I used to get up at 4. Drive all the way from Tyneside & work in the ctr of London. You couldn't drive along oxford st after 9. Yes I was getting paid for this but would not like to be doing it now. Wages or ways to improve qualifications that's the only thing that would get me to live down there


Well, assuming a vehicle that does about 40 mpg (OK a bike does much more then this), that trip would probably take you about 5 hours these days with traffic even at 4am and would cost you about £100 per round trip.

5 days per week, 4 week month -> £2000

Personally I couldn't give up that much of my family life to do something like that.  So it's a good thing I work less than 20 minutes walk (just over the mile) from my house.

But back on topic, I think hospitals should be forced to provide either parking or transport arrangements for their staff.  You can't force staff to live within walking distance since (a) especially in the south east, it's too expensive (b) my understanding is that a nurse can be asked to work at a range of hospitals within a given area.


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## Pigeon (Jul 14, 2014)

ypauly said:


> In Nottingham it's probably worse as they have additional charges.
> http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/wpl



actually the NHS is exempt from the workplace parking levy. Not that it's easy to park at the hospitals in Nottingham either.

Funnily enough, at the Boots head office half of the site comes under the workplace parking levy and half doesn't (because it's based on distance from the town centre). Guess it's supercompetitive to park in the cheap half there! BUT they are justifying the parking levy to pay for the tram extension, which will improve access to a lot of workplaces in the city, including one of the hospitals.


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## ypauly (Jul 15, 2014)

Pigeon said:


> actually the NHS is exempt from the workplace parking levy. Not that it's easy to park at the hospitals in Nottingham either.
> 
> Funnily enough, at the Boots head office half of the site comes under the workplace parking levy and half doesn't (because it's based on distance from the town centre). Guess it's supercompetitive to park in the cheap half there! BUT they are justifying the parking levy to pay for the tram extension, which will improve access to a lot of workplaces in the city, including one of the hospitals.


You learn something new every day lol 


Thanks


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