| Topic: | Re:Re:The cost of Hospital Parking is like rubbing salt into the wounds! | |
| Posted by: | Lynn Clark | |
| Date/Time: | 29/11/05 01:15:00 |
| Some interesting information from the report into hospital parking charges by Macmillan: One hidden cost of NHS treatment that has been steadily growing in recent years is parking charges. Hospitals have been allowed to charge for parking on hospital premises since they ceased to be Crown properties in the 1980s. Over the years more and more hospitals have introduced car park charges and those charges have steadily been ratcheted up – effectively a stealth tax. Whereas charges may have been initially introduced to manage hospital traffic and ration scarce parking spaces, today parking charges have become an important source of revenue for hospital trusts in England. One hospital trust source told the Health Service Journal that their hospital trust raised more than £250,000 a year from parking charges: ‘Charging is a big money-maker for trusts. In the last five or six years, trusts have cottoned on to the revenue potential of charging for car parks and turned it into a tax on health.’ In a parliamentary written answer in 2002 then health minister David Lammy said that ‘The National Health Service trusts can charge for car parking in order to raise additional income to improve the health service using income generation powers’. There is no national regulation of hospital parking charges in any of the UK nations. In a parliamentary written answer given in April 2003, then health minister John Hutton clarified the policy in England, saying ‘It is a matter for individual hospitals to decide whether or not to charge for car parking and the cost of such charges in the light of local circumstances’. Department of Health guidance on parking charges published in 1996 advised hospitals to consider concessions but did not specify which groups of patients should be eligible. Very little research has been conducted into the extent of parking charges in UK hospitals. A 1992 survey by the Greater London Association of Community Health Councils found parking to be inadequate at 29 of the 46 hospitals surveyed and a wide range of parking prices. Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) inspections have consistently found that, whilst dirty wards have hit the headlines, patients are more concerned about parking conveniently and finding their way about the hospital. A 2004 Action for Sick Children study found that parking charges at 67 UK hospital trusts surveyed ranged from 50p an hour to £2.50 an hour; that the average charge for a 24-hour stay was £8.50; and that only a third of the hospitals surveyed offered concessions to parents of sick children. Three-quarters of hospitals in the UK now charge for parking. Charges are most widespread in England, where 92% of hospitals charge. |