# ‘Extortionate’ parking fees at NHS hospitals in Yorkshire condemned



## Northerner (Nov 11, 2017)

Hospitals are charging visitors and staff “extortionate” rates to park on site, it has been claimed, as The Yorkshire Post today reveals the fees that have become a multi-million-pound source of income for health bosses.

Hospital chiefs have said that while the numbers seem high, the funds are then either reinvested into services or used to maintain car parks and on-site security. 

But it has been branded “a stealth tax” by long-standing motoring campaigner, Tory MP Robert Halfon, who on Tuesday will present a bill to Parliament calling for a new law to be introduced abolishing NHS hospital parking fees. 

Mr Halfon, former Conservative Party deputy chairman, said: “Hospital car parking affects everyone who uses the NHS. 

“We cannot say, in good faith, that the NHS is free at the point of access if people face extortionate and unfair car parking fees to get to their hospital appointments, go to work in our vital public services or visit sick relatives.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...mned-ahead-of-abolition-bill-debate-1-8852419


----------



## trophywench (Nov 11, 2017)

Most hospital carparks aren't now owned by the hospital - so that won't work.  Neither will spending some of the treatment budget on potholes!

Bloke is hardly being realistic is he?


----------



## grovesy (Nov 11, 2017)

Northerner said:


> Hospitals are charging visitors and staff “extortionate” rates to park on site, it has been claimed, as The Yorkshire Post today reveals the fees that have become a multi-million-pound source of income for health bosses.
> 
> Hospital chiefs have said that while the numbers seem high, the funds are then either reinvested into services or used to maintain car parks and on-site security.
> 
> ...


All hospitals charge staff to park. They even get fined if they can't find a space in staff parking and park elsewhere.


----------



## trophywench (Nov 11, 2017)

I'd be more than happy to go  to our 'local' big hospital by bus cos the bus stops inside the grounds are really handy for the main entrance.  Only snag with that is, it covers such a huge conurbation it would involve a few hours journey on several buses to do it.

15 minutes - longer in the rush hour - in the car! (and then anything up to an hour to get a space to park in after you arrive on site .....


----------



## khskel (Nov 11, 2017)

So glad I can walk to Hospital - 5 minutes along a bridleway or 15 mins if it's too muddy and I have to walk up to the main road


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

Its about 6mile to my hospital & have NEVER paid in the car park. Much better for you if you walk. I talked to an specialist who road his bike more than 14mile a day & he was fit through that. My mate who lives in the Keswick who cold not drive & T1 peddled nearly 40 mile to go to his hosp. If staff where that hard up they would sort a way to travel. Bus, Scooter, peddle bike, Metro, Tube ?  I regularly volunteer at Newcastle hosps & get Metro there because its cheaper than car parks. Takes longer but enjoy the short walk


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

HOBIE said:


> Its about 6mile to my hospital & have NEVER paid in the car park. Much better for you if you walk. I talked to an specialist who road his bike more than 14mile a day & he was fit through that. My mate who lives in the Keswick who cold not drive & T1 peddled nearly 40 mile to go to his hosp. If staff where that hard up they would sort a way to travel. Bus, Scooter, peddle bike, Metro, Tube ?  I regularly volunteer at Newcastle hosps & get Metro there because its cheaper than car parks. Takes longer but enjoy the short walk



Be grateful you’re physically fit enough to do that Hobie because not everyone is of course.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

Amigo said:


> Be grateful you’re physically fit enough to do that Hobie because not everyone is of course.


I am very grateful I can Amigo. I keep pushing myself & after 51yrs of T1 am in good shape but I hate not being able to do something. That's what drives me.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

I am off to the village tomorrow & its a 2mile walk & I could easily get in my car but I will walk. Hope it does not snow because it feels cold enough


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

HOBIE said:


> I am off to the village tomorrow & its a 2mile walk & I could easily get in my car but I will walk. Hope it does not snow because it feels cold enough



As I said Hobie, it’s great that you can and it would help if more able bodied people went to hospitals without cars but we have to remember many people going there are actually sick and in poor shape. They’d struggle on buses and on bikes even though they’d love to be able to get there without relying on a car.
It’s also disgraceful that patients rely on visitors and visitors are heavily penalised using the car park. It’s £3 for anything over 20 mins at ours and these private companies are making an absolute killing on the proceeds.

I used to work at a huge University hospital and my staff needed to be out into the community many times during the day and sometimes for emergencies. It was a total nightmare trying to park and many ended up paying fines.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

Amigo said:


> As I said Hobie, it’s great that you can and it would help if more able bodied people went to hospitals without cars but we have to remember many people going there are actually sick and in poor shape. They’d struggle on buses and on bikes even though they’d love to be able to get there without relying on a car.
> It’s also disgraceful that patients rely on visitors and visitors are heavily penalised using the car park. It’s £3 for anything over 20 mins at ours and these private companies are making an absolute killing on the proceeds.
> 
> I used to work at a huge University hospital and my staff needed to be out into the community many times during the day and sometimes for emergencies. It was a total nightmare trying to park and many ended up paying fines.


I have seen the carparks & you cant get a space where I live. I would use a different way to get there if I worked there & leave the spaces for people who needed them. My relative unfortunately passed away & I took my parents to the hosp & had to pay a lot for carpark which used to be free but had people where shopping cars in. Families have more than two cars each & will not walk 3ft to get there Sunday paper


----------



## grovesy (Nov 11, 2017)

Mine you can use one of the Park and R


HOBIE said:


> I have seen the carparks & you cant get a space where I live. I would use a different way to get there if I worked there & leave the spaces for people who needed them. My relative unfortunately passed away & I took my parents to the hosp & had to pay a lot for carpark which used to be free but had people where shopping cars in. Families have more than two cars each & will not walk 3ft to get there Sunday paper


Many staff start early and finish late so driving is often the only way. Not all hospitals are central or have good bus services, to the areas they serve.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

There is always a way to get there grovesy


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

HOBIE said:


> There is always a way to get there grovesy



No there isn’t Hobie, not if you’re very elderly, infirm, physically disabled or in the midst of chemo. I think we’ve forgotten what hospitals are for and now allow private companies to make obscene amounts of money out of the car parks without ploughing it back into hospital services. 
I’d like to see a nominal charge for parking but for most of the money to be used for hospital services or at least car park safety and maintenance.


----------



## mikeyB (Nov 11, 2017)

Car parking in Scottish hospitals is free. Not much more to say, really.


----------



## Vince_UK (Nov 11, 2017)

Charging people to use hospital carparks in just a total obscenity in my opinion, plain and simple.
It is a cash cow and a stealth tax on people who are ill and many seirously ill.
I would like to know actually just how much it costs hopitals to administer these carparks and how much these private operators are making from this.
I would like to see a set of accounts for the carparks and a profit and loss statement. Then I would like to see where and how the earnng from these parking facilities are spent.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

My mate who has just passed away & was one of the longest living Heart transplant patients from the Freeman hosp went by himself for years. I don't know if you have ever been to the Freeman. A fantastic big hosp but to get parked ? He was also T2. Another lady in our Duk group gets in her electric wheel chair & travels more than 6mile. Determination helps because she can only walk 10ft also on dialyses.


----------



## Vince_UK (Nov 11, 2017)

Terrific hospital Hobie but a B^££@* to get parked in


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

Bedside TV. They cost £1000 to put in. Who pays & who coins it in ?


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

Vince_UK said:


> Charging people to use hospital carparks in just a total obscenity in my opinion, plain and simple.
> It is a cash cow and a stealth tax on people who are ill and many seirously ill.
> I would like to know actually just how much it costs hopitals to administer these carparks and how much these private operators are making from this.
> I would like to see a set of accounts for the carparks and a profit and loss statement. Then I would like to see where and how the earnng from these parking facilities are spent.



Here you are Vince;

https://www.theguardian.com/society...et-more-money-than-ever-from-car-park-charges

Here’s an example of private companies benefiting from this;

‘In the capital, London North West Healthcare NHS trust made £968,170 in car park charges, but a further £1.26m was kept by the private firm Apcoa under a private finance initiative (PFI) contract.

The trust made £28,449 from car parking fines and the private firm kept a further £25,990 in fines in 2015/16. Over four years, Apcoa has kept £167,357 in fines under the terms of the PFI contract.’

Obscene!


----------



## Vince_UK (Nov 11, 2017)

It would be more cost effective Amgo, if they must continue with ths obscenity, for  the NHS trusts to manage it in-house and also give additional employment to people. Somethings you do not outsource, plain and simple.
The lid really need blowing off this stealth tax and gross NHS inefficiency.


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

Vince_UK said:


> It would be more cost effective Amgo, if they must continue with ths obscenity, for  the NHS trusts to manage it in-house and also give additional employment to people. Somethig you do not outsource, plain and simple.
> The lid really need blowing off this stealth tax and gross NHS inefficiency.



Which is hopefully what this MP intends to do Vince and I wish him luck but I suspect it’s too much of a money earner now for them to reverse it.


----------



## Vince_UK (Nov 11, 2017)

Amigo said:


> Which is hopefully what this MP intends to do Vince and I wish him luck but I suspect it’s too much of a money earner now for them to reverse it.


Yes Amigo and the loss of earning will some how have to be made up in other ways or additiional cost cutting. It is an absolute disgrace.


----------



## mikeyB (Nov 11, 2017)

HOBIE said:


> Bedside TV. They cost £1000 to put in. Who pays & who coins it in ?


TV and WiFi is free, certainly in the Deathstar in Glasgow. Not in the Oban hospital, mind, but to be fair, they need the money.


----------



## HOBIE (Nov 11, 2017)

mikeyB said:


> TV and WiFi is free, certainly in the Deathstar in Glasgow. Not in the Oban hospital, mind, but to be fair, they need the money.


We should all move to the "Bonny Land"


----------



## mikeyB (Nov 11, 2017)

And get sick, of course,  otherwise you’ll miss all these treats


----------



## Amigo (Nov 11, 2017)

When my mum was in hospital not so long ago, my brother and myself reckoned it had cost us over £42 for parking just for the first week as we both visited different times daily. She was worth it of course but I resented paying the private parking company who are mercenary at our local hospital.


----------



## trophywench (Nov 12, 2017)

We don't actually mind paying - we're lucky cos we can afford it, of course.  And in theory of course at our age - bus travel is also nominally free anyway.  However if you happen to live in a village in wildest Warwickshire you are lucky if you are anywhere near a bus service for starters and even luckier if the service departure and arrival times happen to coincide with whatever time you happen to need to get there for your appointment.  I can assure you - nobody parks there unless they need to, there are no local shops or anything else - and it's so expensive anyway you wouldn't do it by choice!

When Pete was having radiotherapy for his cancer treatment we discovered very quickly that the Arden Centre where such things are delivered will happily authorise your carpark ticket so you don't have to pay.  Of course you don't get that for things like in-patient treatment, diagnosis, follow ups - or even A&E visits when stuff goes wrong after or during treatment.  Bearing in mind you typically attend for weekly or daily treatments for quite long periods - it will cost you an arm and a leg.  The nearest supermarket is well over a mile away and in any case once you get onto the hospital site a lot of the roads don't provide pavements to walk along at all, and from the further car parks, it could be a mile and more walk, to get to the main entrance.  You could then have to walk half a mile (a 10 to 15 minute walk inside the hospital) to get to the clinic or ward or eg Xray - especially mammography - where your appointment happens to be.

Fare from here into Coventry is about £5 and I don't know from Cov to Walsgrave.  It's about the same distance so another fiver I suppose.  I don't know how you get on if you are on a very fixed income and don't have shedloads of cash spare.  Some receiving treatment in the Arden centre who have to rely on patient transport, might be there from 9am and then have to wait till late afternoon till they can take them home again.  It's no joke on top of having chemo or radiog, every day for months, is it?


----------



## mikeyB (Nov 12, 2017)

Your point about the lack of pavements means lack of safety for pedestrians, and equally means no safe passage for crumblies like me in a wheelchair. No pavements means more space for cars to make some company richer.


----------



## chaoticcar (Nov 12, 2017)

My daughter in law is a nurse and often finishes a shift after all buses have stopped running so it is either car or taxi ,also two hospitals come under the same authority she is working in a hospital in another town (not by choice ) 
  CAROL


----------



## grovesy (Nov 12, 2017)

chaoticcar said:


> My daughter in law is a nurse and often finishes a shift after all buses have stopped running so it is either car or taxi ,also two hospitals come under the same authority she is working in a hospital in another town (not by choice )
> CAROL


Exactly.
Many of my old colleagues  lived in rural areas where public transport was poor.


----------



## Lucy Honeychurch (Nov 12, 2017)

Lots of staff who work at my local hospital travel 30+ miles to work there or live in villages miles away with no public transport to get there. Some car share and a pub down the road offers a section of their car park free for hospital staff. Walking, running or cycling isn't really an option and, as some one who works nights, I wouldn't fancy walking, cycling etc +++ miles after a busy 12 hour night shift


----------



## grovesy (Nov 12, 2017)

Lucy Honeychurch said:


> Lots of staff who work at my local hospital travel 30+ miles to work there or live in villages miles away with no public transport to get there. Some car share and a pub down the road offers a section of their car park free for hospital staff. Walking, running or cycling isn't really an option and, as some one who works nights, I wouldn't fancy walking, cycling etc +++ miles after a busy 12 hour night shift


I often struggled after particularly hard shifts to walk to the car.


----------



## Sally71 (Nov 13, 2017)

Public transport to our hospital is good, so I use it as much as possible, but you can't escape the fact that it's quicker to drive, so depending on appointment times and what else we are doing sometimes there is no choice but to use the car.  E.g. clinic appointments are always during school hours, it's almost impossible to get one out of school hours, and I like to minimise the amount of school that my daughter misses.  So sometimes we have to use the car. Luckily there isn't often a problem finding a space, and we don't have to go very often so the charge isn't an issue for us.  It's a shame that the money doesn't go back to the hospital though, and must be a nightmare if you have to go to hospital more often than we do for treatments, or for your visitors if you are an in-patient.  My daughter was in for a week when she had her appendix out and even buying a 1-week pass and swapping tickets with our visitors to minimise the charges it cost quite a lot between us all   Some people can't afford that


----------



## mikeyB (Nov 13, 2017)

I just wonder, in the 21st century, why many appointments that are nothing more than a discussion, can’t  be conucted over Skype. Obviously, this is not suitable for everyone, but a good proportion of appointments could be offered this way.


----------



## trophywench (Nov 13, 2017)

Pete's last prostate consultation was a phone one, and a nurse one at that.  Our hospital now do this when a chap's blood tests are stable - but Pete's MacMillan nurse was and still is, 2 years later - pretty useless TBH.

She rang him and told him the blood test result - still undetectable - excellent. Ooh good, it's been that ever since I finished the radiography hasn't it, hope it stays that way, says Pete.  Nurse - in accusing voice apparently - WHAT radiography?

Same hospital, and your boss, the consultant you work with, referred him for it when his PSA kept going up after surgery - try reading peoples files before you ring them, you useless mare.

Pete doesn't get shirty with people like me but I haven't a clue how he doesn't!


----------

