The Welsh Assembly have pulled the plug on this charge. Westminster say that English Hospitals won't.
Parking at a Welsh Hospital over Christmas cost our family a small fortune. The car park was a well laid out, well designed one, with a Police Approval for security.
I am in two minds. I hate the principle of paying for something we already have paid for through taxation, the other part of me says that the payment deters commuters and residents. Maybe a compromise situation here whereby staff and patients get a "cashback" and visitors have to pay - but can apply for rebate based on attendance..
Any views ?
(Without resorting to political slanging.)
Edited by Pugugly on 03/03/2008 at 21:16
|
The closure of many medical facilities puts more pressure on those that remain in terms of access and parking. At the same time, new and expanding facilities at those that remain further decreases the opportunity to park.
My wife an I were careless enough to have two children. I really resented having to pay to park at a hospital to visit her. Public transport was not an option.
One day I can see it becoming just like the airlines. The treatment is free, but you have to pay for the parking, the swabs, the electricity, the food, the consumables etc.
|
It does not take a genius to work out the classic supermarket way of solving parking is to force parkers to pay and then get a refund when they visit the hospital. If Tesco and Asda can do it, why not hospitals?
|
|
|
|
I think agree on cash back somehow. Definately for patients and staff but maybe for visitors too. But totally free means that for some hospitals shoppers and commuters cause a problem. If the latter happens I'd rather pay and grumble.
Now how might cash back work? Well first I think it needs to become pay for your stay and not pay and display. Which now would be better - how do we know how long we will be?
If you get a ticket on entry and pay on departure then we all benefit on paying for what is needed and a machine in wards could update the system for family/visitors as appropriate. The Lowry Outlet mall in Salford is free for two hours and longer if a ticket is validated after a purchase.. So the system can work.
As for staff... with pay as you depart type barriers then it's a no brainer. We used to have the 13th floor of the Arndale when we occupied the tower. We had passes to let us in/out without the need for tickets or paying. Last there just before the IRA bomb in Manchester. Great when shopping in the week on a day off - free! Saved me £8 per day in 1995/1996.
|
|
|
Slightly wider point but I feel it would be a positive move if all council owned and operated car parks were free or very cheap. In my ideal world, all urban car parks would be. On road parking could then be more reasonably restricted to bona fide loading, set down / pick up, and appropriate disabled concessions thus, hopefully, increasing traffic flow. There already exist some town centres with this sort of arrangement and it does work better than most alternatives.
As for hospitals, very difficult, a genuine user of the hospital possibly should not be charged for parking but an "abuser" eg someone parking for convenience rather than need or emergency probably should. Not sure how you would sensibly and sensitively measure or assess the difference though.
|
|
I think its going to end up in chaos in Wales - the hospital I parked at is in the middle of nowhere (Glan Clwyd) but I'm sure their urban ones are going to get abused.
|
I have no problems at all with paying for parking at a hospital. The only ones where I have been asked to pay anything other than a nominal fee (say £1 for 2 hours) are those in city centres, and the charge is often free for 30 minutes or so. Any longer term visits (like 3 weeks at the Bristol Royal Infirmary) have always been with the help of a special scheme.
Car parks do not come free and given the queues at some you could always argue that they are not charging enough.
As one NHS boss put it - we don't subsidise local transport and taxis, why should we subsidise car drivers.
|
|
|
|
|
Why should they be free? You get a service, you pay.
|
Similar issue has happened up here in Scotland and our Executive have put the planned charges on hold.
St John's Hospital in Livingston has charges but contained within the hospital is the local health centre. So if you go to a doctor for your normal appointment, you get a token to put in the machine to let you out. However if you are visiting a patient in the hospital you pay £1 (I think).
Stobhill hospital in Glasgow were going to introduce fees as well. The explanation being that there were not enough car parking spaces available for people with hospital appointments so the proposal was that there would be a limited number of spaces for hospital employees who had to apply for a space and basically go through a selection criteria. But as with all these, then its who you know.
My wife is a nurse there, does 12 hour shifts and lives 15 miles away and has no way of travelling by public transport. However she did not qualify for a space. However the surgeons and consultants surprisingly enough did!
So adjacent streets would get filled up with cars causing mayhem for commuters but the car park would sometimes be lying empty!
Crazy but again I can see it both ways. Very few employees are allowed to park at their work free of charge so why should nurses? But on the other hand they have been allowed to up till now so by not allowing it, they are effectively taking away a benefit without compensation.
Its a tough one, I don't mind them admitting that demand exceeds supply, but similar to London's Congestion Charge, don't then use it to make loads of money through charges and disguise it by saying the charges are purely as a deterrent and not a money making idea.
|
|
|
Why should they be free? You get a service you pay.
Fair enough Nsar, in the most straightforward situations. It could, however, perhaps be argued that there is a difference though between parking in a town centre car park to go shopping and parking at a hospital to have some element of your health treated. The former scenario involves a lot more choice.
On the wider point, we have a crazy situation in my local town which is well provided with good car parks at sensible prices. They are patrolled and well managed but as a result anyone failing to comply with the conditions will be ticketed. The streets of our town are of medieval origin and are very narrow. Most of them are either double yellowed or fully pedestrianised. They are, conversely, rarely patrolled resulting in random / rude parking and blockages. I feel that plentiful cheap / free off road parking combined with fairly strict enforcement of on road parking violations is the sensible option. Still don't have a definate opinion on the hospital thing though. Heart says don't kick people when they are down and head says there will be those who abuse the privelege.
Edited by shoespy on 03/03/2008 at 22:11
|
|
|
|
|
It would be interesting to know who gets the cash from the parking charges and how much is made yearly by individual hospitals. Personally I don't like the idea of paying to park at hospitals when you have paid your nat ins and general taxes. Our local hospital (N.Hants) has a large car park and a very efficient lot of payment machines with wardens waiting to pounce on non payers.
No, it isn't right.
|
|
But how is it different to paying to park when you go to your GP/library etc in the town centre?
|
"But how is it different to paying to park when you go to your GP/library etc in the town centre? "
I guess that having to pay several times per week in order to visit a very sick friend/relative or if you require frequent dialysis or chemotherapy it might seem a little different to the occasional visit to a library.
|
One difference is that when you go shopping you spend money and the shop(s) can afford to give you your parking charge back. When you go to hospital you are costing them money, if you are a patient, and they want some of that money back so you pay to park!
|
No you pay only pay because you choose to use the most convenient car park. Car parks cost money.
|
|
|
|
One problem that charging for hospital parking causes is that tight fisted people like me object to paying for it and end up parking in local side streets.
|
|
|
|
|
In principle paying to park is not outrageous, but some of the implementations seem to be not well thought out. For example a £4 ticket valid for a whole day is not unreasonable, but for 5 minutes for a blood test it seems a little over the top! Tickets are 'one time use' only, in theory, but in practice at our local hospital a ticket exchange is operated on a widespread basis amongst regular users of the car park. OK, strictly 'not legal', but very difficult to police until they introduce sophisticated payment technology, cameras, ANPR, designated identifiable bays......
I would guess that they have worked out if there are N bays and the revenue generated is >£4N per day they are happy. Of course introducing a sophisticated technological solution would cost money, the rates for a a day would go up, but could then allow more reasonable short stay rates.
There are concessions for regular visitors/users, weekly season tickets, free short stay for radio therapy patients and undoubtably other classes of user.
They do not seem to to clamp, as I guess the local press would have a field day with front page coverage of wheel chair patients photographed stranded , with the rain or snow around.
But why will they not have a machine that accepts £2 coins?
|
|
|
|
My local hospital charges £3 for parking (you can buy a weekly season ticket for £5), yet one of Liverpool's largest hospitals just £1.50.
My personal view is that it is completely wrong for hospital trusts to have to rely on using parking fees to help improve patients' services - we already pay very large sums in taxes to central government to maintain the NHS and the money from parking fees is a very, very tiny part of the overall budget.
I also think it's wrong, a view several members of my family will support, to charge hospital staff for car parking.
The trust says they could/can use public transport but those working late shifts or during the night don't have this choice.
|
|
|
|
I am in two minds. I hate the principle of paying for something we already have paid for through taxation
I agree. There's also the point of view of "rightness" - proper behaviour and expectation - which can be overlooked.
the other part of me says that the payment deters commuters and residents. Maybe a compromise situation here whereby staff and patients get a "cashback" and visitors have to pay - but can apply for rebate based on attendance..
Surely there must be a way of not charging bona fide visitors, and clamping, crushing the cars of, using for medical experimentation, or otherwise deterring casual users...
There are other issues... I went to casualty - there were parking spaces, so I parked in one. There was also a flippin' big notice about penalty charges. I worried about it while taking care of the person I'd taken there, and the worry affected my support. Another time, I frequently visited a seriously ill patient (around Christmas), and used ordinary street parking... there were cones all around there, placed by desperate residents. I chatted to a man outside his house, having slotted in to a parking space between cones- he asked me to move along a few feet as "the parking from the hospital (sic) is dreadful" - his wife was due back from work, and would have trouble finding a space - the overflow of people trying to avoid (paying and) parking in, or who were unable to park in, the hospital car park, was affecting local residents quite badly! He also said that the police had "threatened" him, and others, about placing "illegal" cones - so it must've been a big issue as he was still doing so!
|
For me, it's paying for the NHS itself in every pay packet, with no choice or alternative, which galls - the car park charges are simply trivial in comparison.
|
Charging and managing the car parking provision at hospitals and other large employers/destinations is a key plank of attempts to encourage more sustainable travel - typically such sites are now obliged based on planning permissions for new buildings etc to have travel plans that attempt to reduce car based travel by staff and visitors. Controlling parking provision and encouraging people to think of other ways of getting there is key to getting modal shift towards other means. Hospitals are encouraged anyhow to see their assets to include land and space (which typically they want to build on).
I don't see why people think they should be able to park for free when others who chose more sustainable means don't AFAIK get free travel. I think people have been seduced by the free parking on offer at Tescos/B&Q and assume everywhere else should be the same. I am certain that within a few years parking in all locations except your own drive way will be charged for as a means to level the playing field with other transport modes and to encourage more to use cars sparingly.
|
|
|
|
There is a hospital/medical centre in Leeds being built with *no* parking - or so I'm told.
Certainly commuters/workers abuse free parking in urban centres.
Some car parks in North Yorks require you to enter the letters of your number plate to stop tickets being passed on.
|
Let's all go and live in Wales, and tip the country into the Irish Sea.
Iniquitous charges for hospital parking are, er, iniquitous. Wales is right and Westminster et al. are money-grubbing carphound suits who wouldn't have jobs at all if it wasn't for Mrs Thatcher. Bad cess to the wolf-that's bad !
Edited by Pugugly on 03/03/2008 at 23:03
|
|
|
>>Some car parks in North Yorks require you to enter the letters of your number plate to stop tickets being passed on.>>
Sefton Metropolitan Council, in whose (God forsaken area) I reside, has a similar policy.
It's so petty it's almost laughable.
If the council was as efficient at maintaining roads and other essential services you might perhaps forgive such pathetic practices.
Edited by Stuartli on 03/03/2008 at 23:29
|
|
|
|
I agree with the earlier suggestion that those atending the hospital should be able to get their ticket "swiped" at reception on the way home after the treatment to get the barrier to lift free of charge.
I went to casualty - there were parking spaces
This reminds me of a friend who works night shifts in a major supermarket. He was wobbling around a bit so the night-shift manager asked him what was wrong. They looked at his swollen ankle and thought it wise to ask him to go to Casualty. He drove there, and it being 3 am, was seen within half an hour. The Doctor on duty diagnosed a very serious life threatening blood infection and admitted him to a high dependency unit for treatment. The next morning the consultant advised him that his stay in hospital was likely to last between 2 to 3 weeks. He asked what was going to happen to his car, and they said your life is more important and you can worry about the car later. As it happened, the nurse on the morning shift knew him to be a friend of her husband, and said she would get the car taken care of. She spoke to the car park operator and their clampers, and was able to save him from having to pay any charges. Her husband arranged temporary insurance and removed the car from the car park the on the 2nd day. Otherwise a clamped car with mounting fees would have been the result.
|
One problem overlooked by those who do not have experience of hospitals is that they are now 'centres of excellence'. This means they are no longer relatively local, so hopping on a bus is not possible.
The childrens oncology dept. at Southampton takes children from Exeter to Brighton, up to Alton, Hants, the Isle of Wight and the channel Islands. Same sort of area goes for heart, neurology, eye, neonatal care and so on.
I am another one who thinks you should be able to swipe a ticket if you are long term patient/carer/unsocial hours staff, or if, as an outpatient, your appt to have a scan/see consultant is severely delayed.
|
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately there's pink fluffy dice all they can do with PPP hospitals, as they're privately operated - it would cost them millions to remove car parking charges from eg The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary since NCP have a 20yr contract to operate and maintain the car parks. Why they ever allowed a £10 per day charge though I don't know.
Imagine having rushed your loved one to hospital in an emergency which then ends in tragedy, and having to pay £10 as you leave!
Patients with an appointment should get a token, but I do believe visitors should have to pay, or at least restrict the number of visitor cars per patient. When my sister in law had given birth, there were 5 different people visiting her who turned up in 5 different cars. 4 of these people lived within a mile of each other and were all related, and all arrived at the same time.
{please don't try and bypass the swearfilter as it's neither big nor clever - and takes me less time to delete your post than edit it}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 04/03/2008 at 10:27
|
Many years ago, before the pay systems came in, my wife went through a course of treatment at the Derby Royal Infirmary which meant going in every week. Car park was free but access was barrier controlled.
Luckily I worked near there, she would drive in and join the queue, I would walk over from the office and she would get out, I would get in. She would go in for her appointment, up to 30 minutes later I would take the children (1 and 3) in to meet her at the clinic. If I had not been able to walk over and take over the car she would have had to be there two hours before her appointment to be able to park - placing more of a burden on the car park!
If they had charged for parking she could have turned up and parked without any problems - car park always full of commuters cars.
Anything which introduces a charge at point of use is good (and before the lefties get upset) the French system has exactly this and from my experience it works very well!
|
|
|
It's madness. Carmarthen and Haverfordwest hospital carparks are already crowded and it's difficult getting a space unless you work on a night shift. How do they think making it free is going to help genuine patients and visitors find a space?
They should put the charges up, and issue free permits to patients needing repeat visits.
|
|
|
Unfortunately there's pink fluffy dice all they can do with PPP hospitals as they're privately operated - it would cost them millions to remove car parking charges from eg The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary since NCP have a 20yr contract to operate and maintain the car parks. Why they ever allowed a £10 per day charge though I don't know.
My wife's uncle was admitted to Edinburgh Royal where he died after 6 days - cost my wife £120 in parking, since she visited on her own at lunchtime then at night took her uncle's daughter who didn't drive. (Public transport to Edinburgh Royal takes 2 hours - we only live 10 miles away and can use the city bypass by car).
Local streets ar absolute chaos with hospital workers and other vistors parking there. got so bad that some local poeple even rent out their driveways during the day for staff to park in!
And the hospital even charges blue badge holders who have to use the proper car parks when the very few badge spaces fill up (with non-blue badge holders of course!)
|
|
|
|
This subject is really striking a chord with me a the moment.
My father is currently in hospital in Swindon, has been for the last 11 days, and will be for a while yet. I have to drive 150miles round trip to see him. Now the Great Western is a very new hospital not anywhere near the town ctr. It has lots of car parking spaces and is not that expensive, £1.80 for 2 hours. But, today will be my 5th visit, so nearly £10 already in charges. They should offer long term passes that are given out by ward sisters to patients and their family. It would be easy to implement and no messing around giving refunds etc. Sure it will get abused, all systems do, no way round that.
Over the last 3 years i have also had to visit various hospitals in and around Southampton for treatment. The ones with free parking I have never had a problem finding a space at (admittedly these are out of town), but the RSH and the General have huge parking issues, and their fees are sky high. Problem is, if you are ill the last thing you want to do is have to go anywhere by public transport.
About 2 years ago we suffered a miscarriage, not a pleasent time, coming out of the hospital the last thing on our minds was paying the parking charges (pay on exit scheme), I forgot to pay, got to barrier and then realised. A queue of cars behind and I had to press the buzzer and then explain why I had not paid. Quite how the barrier did not get ripped out of the ground I am still not quite sure. Again this could have been avoided if the Dr's/Sister's had a stack of exit tickets they could just give out as and when needed.
|
For years the biggest nightmare of visiting our local hospital was getting a space in the car park. Often driving round with others on a constant loop competing with any place that was vacated. Now they have introduced high parking charges (about £2 to cover a routine appointment for a few hours) there are always spaces free and it is so more relaxed knowing you don't have to build in "X" mins for the parking scuffle.
Do agree there should be concessions for people who need to visit long term... perhaps one "token" per patient??
David
|
|
My problem with this is that it's English tax payers who are making free parking (and prescriptions) in Wales possible. The Welsh must think it's hilarious.
|
|
|
|
|
My wife, who is employed in our Heath Authority, advises me that long term patients can apply for parking permits which can be given to visitors. Perhaps R75, it might be worthwhile asking if the same applies in the Swindon area?
|
|
|
Perhaps a more case by case(!) approach would work better. In those places where there is competition for places from non-hospital related visits, charges remaining will act as a deterrent - so freeing up more places for 'geniune' visits. For those out-of-town locations, the likelihood is that the only competition is from fellow hospital visitors - so charging can only be construed as revenue raising.
The goal, one assumes, is for patients & workers to have the best, most reliable, quick & easy access to hospitals. I could imagine the situation, post-abolishment, where the situation is made worse by non-hospital visitors taking more spaces - would that help? The simple fact is we pay for parking for most other activites, even other 'health' related ones: should charges be abolished for doctors' or dentist visits (or chiropodists, chiropracters or acupuncturists etc.) if applicable? Will there now be pressure to 'end the discrimination against those visiting the GP or dentist paying parking charges' . You can conjure your own examples.
The Welsh Assembly maybe haven't thought this one through & the law of inintended consequences may well apply. Mind you, I don't rate the WA for its overall level of legislative nous - even with its limited scope. More often than not it seems, they're more interested in populist half-measures & throwing 'tid-bits' to constituents in the hope of distinguishing themselves from their Whitehall masters & promoting the cause of legislative independence.
|
Spot on, Woodbines, but the root of the problem (ie people misusing a free car park) is that in this country we charge too oten and too much to park our cars. People will try to avoid heavy charges by using a free or cheap facility in the vicinity. We just take for granted that pretty well anywhere we park that's not on our land we'll have to stump up a few quid.
As for revenue raising my FiL was in hospital a few months ago and the hospital is an area of Birmingham where no-one would would to park to use shops etc. It's in mainly residential area, but the car parking fees were extortionate. MiL (a pensioner) was paying £8 or more for her twice daily visits (about 5 hours in total) and seemed to think this was reasonable and that 'we can't expect it to be free'! (FiL even had to pay to watch TV!). We already pay handsomely for the NHS and these charges really do anger me. OK, a small, nominal fee to mainatin the car park, but this is pure profiteering and I think it's likely to spread to other areas of our lives.
Grrr..........
|
In Alnwick, well out of town, one has to pay and display to visit one's GP surgery! To be fair this is partly because it is in the grounds of the local hospital
|
|
|
|
|
I went to Southend Hospital for an appointment recently and parking was murder. There were no spare spaces in the (expensive) car park. After a lot of driving around, and a lot of stress, I abandoned my car on yellow lines a long way from the hospital and walked to the appointment (ten minutes late).
I didn't get a ticket fortunately, but I worried about it the whole time.
Now take the local Tesco's, when they had to close a car park because it was under a bridge and the bridge was being repaired, they erected a metal structure onto another existing car park that added another story of parking. It took them 2 days and it's been there for months now. They get all their staff to park on top of it and customers can too. Works brilliantly, pretty much doubled the car park's capacity.
Hospitals should do that, and get visitors/staff to park on top, and let patients park below.
I would be happy to pay a small fee to park at a hospital. The worst thing is when you go there and can't get a parking space *at all*.
Edited by pendulum on 05/03/2008 at 12:08
|
Southend hospital is a nightmare though to be fair plans are in for a 3 storey car park to be built to help the situation, I believe it has now been passed.
The problem there has been that the local residents have, rightly, complained vociferously about the hospital users parking in the local streets and thoughtlessly blocking driveways and even complete junctions to avoid paying charges. The hospital applied for planning permission for the multi storey but the residents who are nearest to where the multi storey was to be sited have complained very loudly about it overshadowing their houses and the dust and traffic that will be caused by the building work. Bit of a Catch22 situation. They do also have a staff park and ride facility which was put in place to try and throw more spaces available for the public.
Also in an effort to give people a choice you can opt to pay in advance in one part of the car park or pay as you leave by a second, barrier controlled, section. Not surprisingly the pay as you leave option, avoiding the clamp risk, has been very popular; so much so that there are now regularly half mile long queues to get in. The queueing traffic now completely blocks one side of the passing dual carriageway for about an hour, half an hour either side of the clinic/visiting starting times, it can now take half an hour to get by the hospital!
As regards the charging aspect they do run a scheme whereby you can purchase a weekly season ticket for £10 which gives unlimited visits and was very useful recently when my FiL was in for chemo for weeks at a time and we were visiting twice a day.
The cause of the problem is quite simple to understand but the solution........
The parking has never been brilliant but a another hospital was closed nearby some years ago and sold off for housing to provide the revenue to build new facilities but on a centralised site for economy of scale. Makes perfect sense to the bean counters. However, now results in twice as many people trying to visit the new larger hospital which houses half as many staff again as it did before but on the same site footprint.
Surprise!
Car parks full hence visitors parking in side streets, solution; introduce charges to 'encourage' people onto, poor, public transport, consequence; those who refuse to pay park in streets to avoid charge, those willing to pay park in spaces in car park vacated by the first lot. Nett result zero, apart from charges.
New solution; increase charges to 'encourage' more people onto, poor, public transport and pay for wages of 'parking supremo', consequence; even more people park in streets those parking in car park only do so when streets are full. Nett result, even more unhappy residents over a larger area as people are now willing to walk even further to avoid paying or using poor public transport.
Recently the 'sustainable transport supremo' realised that the only way forward was to improve public transport and provide more parking on site hence the plans for the multi storey. The buses have also been improved with slight re-routings enabling more buses to serve the hospital more regularly, unfortunately the site has had such a poor reputation for public transport and all the other solutions have been soooo successful very few people are willing to trust it, especially as it now suffers from long delays while stuck in the traffic queueing to get in the car park...................
I'm sure this must be repeated up and down the country and all because 'car is evil', 'bus good' when we all know both should be integrated and both have a role to play.
Sorry for going on at length but I still find it impossible to believe that the powers that be don't realise what has been created.
|
Don\'t have a problem with paying to park at a hospital. I pay to park everywhere else, so why should it be free?
Besides which, there is a far bigger, more expensive, and more blatant exploitation of the sick and their families where hospital stays are concerned that really makes my blood boil, but it\'s not related to motoring and therefore not suitable conversation for this thread.
Cheers
DP
|
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7342967.stm
Ah well - saw that one coming, so they'll have to contract out to clampers and have no income
to offset or cover the cost. What a bunch of silly-billies.
|
>>What a bunch of silly-billies.
It's hard to imagine what the discussions encompassed at the meeting(s) covering this latest 'initiative'. In between munching their custard creams & slurping tea, did none of our delegated representatives envisage that 'free parking' would attract abuse of the system & overall cost to the NHS trusts (or us in other words).
Now, as you say PU, 'free parking' will actually turn out to be far from free with the taxpayer picking-up the security & wheel-clamping tab - along with, no doubt, countless stories in the coming months about unfair & arbitrary clamping of genuine patients.
|
|
if you happen to be a volunteer with a charitable organisation helping the hospital in some way, you can usually successfully apply for a free parking pass covering all the health authority's car parks
|
|
|
|
A similar argument is going on with regard to our local hospital (parking fee is £3), because it claims it usually means that visitors can find a parking space and deters workers and others from using the car park.
However, all they do is clog up local side streets and the main, somewhat narrow road which has already had to have yellow lines done to prevent potential accidents.
In fairness I must point out that those who need to visit the hospital on a frequent basis can buy a weekly ticket for just £5.
Edited by Stuartli on 12/04/2008 at 13:27
|
|
|
