hospital car parking charges

KayEdwards

I wonder if you guys realise that even staff pay to park at the hospital I am a student nurse at. As a student nurse, even I have to pay. The biggest injustice in the spending of the NHS at the moment is the fact that of the student nurses that qualify in a few weeks hardly any of us have jobs. We cost the NHS £50K to train........ thats £50K of tax payers money.

Before you ask - yes I am also a tax payer as I work 55.5 hours a week (18 on top of a full time course) to pay my way.

pianeet

dmg24 wrote:

piannet,

You are obviously not in business are you?!! Do you think that the money is only used to pay the wages of the security guards?

It strikes me that most of the people posting on here know absolutely nothing about what goes into running a car park (ANY car park).

i was just trying to be ironic when i said (two old boys in luminous jackets)normally theres only one:rotfl:

Voyager2002

pickledtink wrote:

Anyone on a low income who needs to visit a child or close relative daily would be in real trouble.

If their income was that low, they would not have a car anyway. Anyone who objects to paying the cost of parking can just come by bicycle, or take the bus.

(Obviously, delivering patients in urgent need of treatment is a different matter.)

seaniboy

Geoggy wrote:

it isnt a money making ploy.

it covers the cost of the external security contractors to manage the car parks and provide a secure parking environment

EDIT

it covers the cost of the external security contractors AND THIER MANY SHAREHOLDERS to manage the car parks and provide a secure parking environment

Geoggy u wouldnt be middle management @ your local Trust would you ?

lemontart

perhaps if the charges were in line with the rest of the towns charges, and if the clearly state on the signage in the carparks and within the hospital that there are weekly tickets or concessions available, and if there was a way the ticket could be cleared in emergency depts so no charge for such visits to hospitals many would feel less annoyed and that the system is fairer.

Bethxxx

seaniboy

littleange_com wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4850562.stm

!!!!ing disgusting!!!!!!!



" Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust raised just over £1m from its car parks over two hospital sites.

A spokeswoman said: "In direct response to local demand, we have considerably expanded the number of spaces available and also ensured a good standard of lighting, security, etc... investing some £1.2m in car park expansion and improvements in the last six years."


hhhhmmmmm 6 million minus 1.2

its disgraceful, they should be run @ operating costs, considering the levels of cash the NHS get these days

Davidboy

KayEdwards wrote:

I wonder if you guys realise that even staff pay to park at the hospital I am a student nurse at. As a student nurse, even I have to pay. The biggest injustice in the spending of the NHS at the moment is the fact that of the student nurses that qualify in a few weeks hardly any of us have jobs. We cost the NHS £50K to train........ thats £50K of tax payers money.

Before you ask - yes I am also a tax payer as I work 55.5 hours a week (18 on top of a full time course) to pay my way.

Yes my daughter is also a student nurse and has to pay a yearly amount to park, trouble is she only uses part of it, cos with uni time and other placement areas, ie being with district nurse etc, she pays dearly for the priviledge!! How many of you out there pay to park at your work place??


D

JasonLVC

Why are hospital car parking charges so emotive?. Even the big supermarkets are starting to charge or clamp if you stay over 20 hours (as before, people would park, say, at Tesco and then do their shopping 'in town' but for free.

If you go into any town, there is a charge for parking, if you're unemployed, you still have to drive and park in a carpark near to the DSS offices, you have to pay at train stations when you go to work, at the airport when you go on holiday. Why do you have to pay for coffees in the WRVS whilst your in hospital, that should be free as well, and the newspapers you have to buy when your on a ward. Those last two are silly I know, but where do you draw the line between free and paying. The treatments are free, everything else are optional extras in my view.

I'm not defending hospital parking charges, but, I simply ask that if they didn't then their healthcare funds would be diverted somewhat to carparks, conversly, if the carparks had no attention then they'd be full of potholes, not lit, dangerous with a high chance that whilst your in hospital your car will be damaged/robbed.

So, the NHS can't win really. We demand free parking that is safe and guarantees are car will not be nicked whilst also demanding the finest medical treatment in the world. Bottom, line, it can't be done. Hospitals do make money from it and why not?. It's a resource that needs to be exploited - you can always take a bus and if not, then accept the fact that there will be a charge. I hate paying for parking when I go on a train, but I can't get to the station without driving and whilsst I'm gone I'd like to think my car is safe. All comes at a cost.

Council tax is affected by carparking charges so if the public want cheaper carparking then the council tax goes up. Asda don't charge for parking but you can bet yourself that they put 0.001% on everything they sell to cover the running costs.

taxiphil

In reply to JasonLVC - I'm not sure about your analogy of hospital car parking being an 'optional extra' like coffee or a newspaper. Try telling the family of a cancer patient that parking at the hospital is an 'optional extra'.

The hospital car park is public land which we all own and have already paid for.

The justification of the charge being used for lighting, security and filling potholes is a complete red herring. There is no connection between car park charges and road surfacing / security. The money raised from car park charges goes into the NHS Trust's central pot and isn't spent on the car park.

You can dress it up any way you want, but hospital car park charges are a tax on the sick.

It all comes down to the NHS being grossly inefficient thanks to bad management and New Labour fiascos like the Private Finance Initiative which I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned. The upshot is that the public are having to pay more for less, and car park charges are just another tax, albeit an incredibly unfair one because they are loaded upon the sick patient rather than being spread across society.

lemontart

they are emotive as they are normally a lot higher than other car parking charges in the towns and parking charges in my hospital apply 24/7/365 whereas the town centre car parks operate during the day 6 days a week up to 6pm.

Many hospitals are on outskirts of towns and are not that easy to get to using public transport especially after 8pm in my town - also it can cover a massive area..kgh is the only one of two casuality depts in the whole of northants and covers a massive area - many villages are lucky to have 2 buses aday let alone any that would go to the hopsital - so means changing buses at least once and a 8 mile journey from the next nearest town to kettering would take approx 2 hrs or more if in villages as more buses and taxis are expensive with a £4 plus fare for about 2 miles at present in kettering, on that ratio you would be looking at a £32 round trip thats when you can get a taxi as now only one company and few indies here when there used to be 3 companies.........i got a taxi home from casuality last yr at about 4am in the morning and was charged £9 for the privalage of a 3 3 mile trip - ....many folk have to have a car to get to work in areas such as mine due to ltd public transport and nature of working hrs not being compatable to the bus timetable.

Beth
xx