Hospital visit just cost us £30

JasonLVC

First of all, the £30 charge was levied by the Council as the OP had parked on the main road - so nothing to do with the hospital at all. It's worth appealing but they probably get 100's of appeals with that excuse every week so without proof I'd doubt it would be worthwhile persuing. knowing Councils, they probably know it's a hotspot and post an attendant out there all day - catching folk out. C'est la vie.

I've spent over seven years working across the country, specifically for NHS trusts.

Car parks do cost money to maintain (security, pot-holes, cctv) and hospitals are as open to being sued for trips, slips and falls in their carparks as anyone else. The other problem is most hospitals tend to be in town centres and so they suffer greatly from cheap-skates parking and then walking into town/work across the road so you tend to find hospitals in rural areas don't charge/charge very little, where if it is in town, you could be looking at over £8 per day upwards. So why should the NHS, paid for by our taxes subsidise parking. The NHS is about medical treatment not about social conveniences so if it's not medical, it's not NHS. Carparks are not medical, they are a convenience. Some dentists/gp's don;t even have car park and you have to park on the road but no-one complains about that.

Most hospitals have a season ticket scheme for in-patients where they have most of the costs refunded so the NHS is being fair to 'the customer' (the sick person), maybe not to visitors, but then they are not 'customers'.

As most hospitals are quite old, car parking space is also at a premium, especially in town centres again and when something is in short supply, capitalism dictates a charge can be made to restrict useage, ie. high car park fees. Remember, staff also have to pay for parking at the hospital in most cases every day, visitors are only there now and again (unless a long-term illness of course).

Hospitals, like anything else, has to see where it can make money. They charge for tea/coffees in the sandwich shop, they charge for baby ultrasound scans, they charge for parking, they charge for copy patient notes. Basically, if they don't have a legislative reason to provide it free, they don't have to provide it free.

Don't get caught up in the 'we pay for the NHS' argument. You pay your council tax and yet have to pay to park when you go into town. You pay your water bill and yet have to pay if there is a leak outside your house, you pay your road tax yet still have to pay road tolls/bridge tolls. If Asda could charge you for parking at their stores they would...but they'd rather offer it to you for free, get you into the shops and put 0.001p on everything you buy instead. Hospitals don't charge for their main services so how else can they off-set their costs?.

An average city hospital generates around £250k per annum from car-parking revenues, after staff costs, thats £200k for the hospital to play with. If they loose that £200k, they have to cut back elsewhere to the value of £200k - I'd rather pay the carpark fee than have services reduced even more.

I'm not supporting the NHS. It is a damn mess run by idiots with zero business sense. I've always believed if something is free it's value is reduced but just trying to put th arguments into perspective.

On a different note, RyanAir are now charging customers for hand luggage. That's breaking a god-given tradition since flights began. But they've done it to make more money and they will. Point is, just becuase you pay for one thing, doesn't entitle you to something else as well. We pay our taxes for Healthcare, not free parking, free coffee, etc.

Anniek1969

Records not being updated has sod all to with underfunding, IMO, and far more to do with slack staff [/QUOTE]

Completely disagree with you on this point, the ward had only 3 staff instead of the 5 it should have had and two of them were from another ward. If they were fully staffed then they would have enough to cover when staff are ill. As for slack staff I have had plenty of experience with hospital staff over the years and have yet to come across nursing staff who are slack, in fact quite the oposite, they are usually running around trying to get everything done because there just isn't enough staff to cover the amount of work to be done. I really take my hat off to the nursing staff as they come in for a lot of criticism not to mention the amount of verbal and physical abuse they have to put up with. As I mentioned earlier my brother is an ambulanceman and he has his fair share of abuse but he sees what the medical staff have to endure on a daily basis, they're there to help the people who come in to hospital so why do so many see them as the enemy. You should visit our local casualty at the weekend and see what these people have to put up with. The funding of the hospital has nothing to do with the nursing staff yet they are always asked to justify why wards are understaffed, why people have to supply their own toiletries, why the meals are bad etc. So that's my rant over for the day but the only reason I posted was to vent my frustration at how everything seems to go wrong at the same time, it's like a snowball. One thing goes wrong (MIL being in hospital) then that leads to another (Doctor want to see DH and being late back for car and getting ticket) and another ( late getting daughter from school) but it looks like I've opened a can of worms leading to a full scale debate on the NHS.

Everybody has their own opinion on the NHS but mine is that the hospitals are underfunded and understaffed and I really appreciate the work that hospital staff do and if I had to pay for parking to visit my relatives I would like to think that the money would go to the hospital to help with funding and if so I would gladly pay it. Surely they could come up with a permit system allowing family of long term patient to have free parking.

JasonLVC

Anniek1969 wrote:

Records not being updated has sod all to with underfunding, IMO, and far more to do with slack staff

Sorry, my post was big and you slipped in a post before I could. The NHS does provide a discount for patients in hospital (see above)!!.

Thanks.

oldagetraveller

http://www.nomoreparkingtickets.com/

You never know!

trickytrolleys

Im sorry but updating records in a hospital is absolutely crucial - weve all worked places where there is not enough staff but to not do one of the most important aspects of the job is just slack - if theres enough time to ask twice then theres enough time to ask once and do the updating!

gregg1

kenshaz wrote:

NHS is not free,nothing is free in this world

actually, I know something that is free - car parking in most private hospitals! Although obviously you do have to pay for the treatment itself. I think I know which I would prefer to pay for! Our NHS is still one of the best in the world - despite all its problems. My wife has, in the past week, had major surgery and could not have been treated better had we paid privately, and yes I had to pay for car parking when I visited. I am not stinking rich either but considered it a small price to pay for the excellent treatment my wife received. I can understand the fees can be a problem for some people and do sympathise. I also think that the staff should be able to park for free but I can understand why they charge the rest of us for parking. Maybe they should introduce a system whereby if you can prove you need to attend the hospital for treatment on a regular basis you can get reduced rates or pay for the first week or so and then have the fee waived until the end of treatment. Just an idea.

gregg1

geo555 wrote:

What next, bed charges so hospitals can claw back the cost of them. We pay enough money in taxes, with a lot going to the NHS, only to see it being wasted.

No - you are getting confused with "private" hospitals - they charge for beds! I think you will find that, in the NHS,the beds are seen as an integral part of the process of caring for the sick. Don't think anyone will see free car parking as being crucial to someone's health though!

kenshaz

mcelhinney wrote:

spot on!! There's a world of difference between 'free' and 'free at the point of delivery' - unless you need drugs from a doctor in which case its about £7 a shot!! LOL

Except in Wales where it is £4

bootman

Wow, I hope you don't need serious long term care, how thoughtless voyger 2002
. We actually live in a village 30 miles from the hospital, not a town where buses run every few minutes!!

I am having to take unapaid leave from work to take her, we have been 4 times is 2 weeks so far and this has cost me an extra £20 in petrol, then with parking on top. Her treatment could last 6 months with over 60 visits, so if we even stop for 2 hours or less that is £120 in parking alone. I don't think it is wrong to ask if there is any leway over this.

roswell

??? Im very confused, the fact is the Op parked in a bay that allows 30 mins free parking and they went over this limit .... pay the fine!!! your in the wrong.

End of the day you werent in the hospital car park you took a calculated risk that you would be back in the 30 mins but werent so its fair to say you lost the risk and there for should pay the penalty. Im sorry that you feel a a £30 fine is worse than speaking to the doctor about the health of your mother........