My point is well known on this site.

All hospital car parking for out patients and family and friends visiting in patients should be free, as it is in Scotland & Wales. I shall continue to fight for this. We now seem to have a NHS system controlled and taxed by Whitehall but Scotland & Wales allow free car parking (and free prescriptions). This can not be fair.

My doctor's surgery has a very large free car park, they do not charge their patients for the privilege of seeing them

sherbert wrote on Jun 6^th, 2011 at 2:21pm:
This is simply not practical. Hospital parking charges should be proportionate, fair and consistent with the surrounding area. Exemptions should be permitted according to medical or financial need. Free parking is open to abuse. Monitoring vehicles to prevent abuse will add cost. While some parking costs at some facilities is not acceptable, and the implementation of some parking systems is not ideal, a blanket free-for-all is unworkable.

I worked at both University College and Charing Cross hospitals in the 80s. I do not recall any free public parking at either facility at that time, nor would I have expected such a lavish arrangement. I certainly would not expect, in 2011, to drive into Hammersmith and expect to park, at no cost, at a major hospital.

I'm with sherbert on this one, for reasons which I've explained previously.  Regarding London hospitals, many of these surely don't have car parks anyway and are well served by public transport, we have friends living on the edge of Greater London who would not consider driving their car into London under any circumstances, on the occasions when I had to travel to a hospital in London from North Essex, often with a child, it would not have occurred to me to drive as it would be far too much hassle, never mind the parking & congestion charges.   I think the points sherbert & I are making (& he'll correct me if I've misunderstood!) is that for many, if not most people, there is no adequate means of reaching the local hospital other than by car, they have already paid for their petrol/diesel (a fortune these days) ie their fare & then to be charged again to park amounts to a tax of hospital access, this would also go for visitors as it is considered beneficial in health terms for patients to have visitors, often they actually help & support medical staff in patient care.

Regarding monitoring of who uses the car park, I would refer to Addenbrookes which, prior to charging, used to monitor access to the outpatients' car park by people showing their appointment card/letter, this worked extremely well.  Now, with their expensive multi-storey which might still be more convenient for non-hospital related "parkers", there seems to be no check whatsoever - if you're prepared to pay, you can park.  How's that an improvement?

sherbert wrote on Jun 29^th, 2011 at 9:16am:

Any policy of charging patients is put in place not because it is felt that they should be charged, but as strategy to prevent the undesired consequence of offering free parking, which is that those without business at hospitals will take advantage.

There are many things in life which are so, not because they "should" be in their own right, but because they are necessary as a practical solution to a problem (the undesired consequences).

There is often a fraternity that will argue against something but will not put forward practical solutions. Decisions on any policy should be based on sound logical reasoning for all the issues involved and not just a single part such as whether patients "should" be charged or not.


The protestors who stopped the coal train at Drax Power Station did so on what they claim is the basis of preventing climate change.

These sorts of people don't tend to offer any practical solution. Even though electrical generation is a free-market; they don't set-up their own "clean" power station. They targetted Drax because it is the largest coal-fired power station in Western Europe, but it's the most efficient!!

Let's not beat about the bush here. We don't burn coal for electricity because there is a need to have harmful gases emitted into the atmosphere. We don't drive our cars because we love the polution; we do so because to not do so would be a far worse position to be in.

But we should always strive to mitigate the negative effects as much as we can.

Dave wrote on Jun 29^th, 2011 at 10:03am:



Works in Scotland, so why not the England? So let sus use their solution.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7593400.stm

To quote Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Health Secretary, when she announced the ending of parking fees in 2008

"It's simply not fair to expect patients or visitors to have to pay when they come to hospital, when they may be suffering personal anxiety, stress or grief.

"Put bluntly, a car parking charge is often the last thing people need."

I think this sums up what Barbara and I have been banging on about.

I am sure someone is now going to tell me to move to Scotland

There are undoubtedly cases where NHS hospital car parking charges are inappropriate and wholly improper. On these cases I am fully behind those who oppose them and would happily throw my weight into any specific campaign. If any such campaign is on-going, then I would be delighted to receive details and will do all I can.

Without going into detail in response to suggestions already made, I cannot see any way that a universal scheme for free hospital parking could be introduced without the risk of serious abuse that would cause it to be seen as unacceptable. Each locality is different with respect to the expectation of having to pay to park, the extent to which each patient and visitor has a need to travel by car and park is different. I wish there were a simple and proper universal answer, but I cannot see it.

I do not want hospitals that have land available for car parking to be forced to sell it off because they cannot raise any return from it. Neither do I want hospitals to be required to acquire car parking spaces so as to provide an equal facility on the grounds of equity.

I believe that this has to be a local issue. Any local hospital that is getting it wrong, e.g. by imposing charges in an area where street parking is available and free of charge, must be subjected to the full weight of campaigning energies.

SCV, surely it's where there isn't any free, off-street parking that the issue arises?   If there is free, nearby on-street parking, I would always use that rather than pay to park in the hospital (& used to at Addenbrookes until they colluded with the local council in covering the whole area in double yellow lines!).   As I've said before, in Cambridge even the staff at the P&R used to encourage people to park there & walk to the hospital (about 10-15 mins, bus service quite unreliable eg for appointments) but now, the Council responsible for the P&R is thinking of imposing parking charges in addition to the very high bus fares - I won't go into detail here about the unfair pricing of the P&R which grossly overcharges those only going to the hospital compared to those continuing to the city centre, a far greater distance.  To me, this proves collusion between hospital & council in maximising charges to those having to attend the hospital - a captive market to be exploited to the maximum.

Another stupid example of introducing parking charges was in Saffron Walden; the community hospital had a free car park, they decided to introduce parking charges - everyone moved to parking in the free, unlimited Tesco's car park on the opposite side of the road hence all that equipment installed at great cost, less mobile patients inconvenienced to a degree, & the hospital out of pocket as so few patients then used the car park.

As sherbert said, if they can do it in Scotland, why not in England?  I would add, parking at hospitals always used to be free, it worked then, I suggested monitoring systems to prevent/discourage abuse.

I am not involved in any campaign, I no longer live near Addenbrookes & am involved in battling now with the hospital in Cheltenham where the Trust uses only 0845 telephone numbers!  However, their parking charges are also very high so I will be seeking free on-street parking within 15 mins walk when I have time.