Watchdog - Hospital parking

Nigel Lewis-Baker explains how hospital charges affected him during seven weeks of daily cancer treatment.

Car park charges and fines

No one likes paying to park their car, and though the charges don't seem so bad when they're at a place you've chosen to visit - like a shopping centre, or somewhere for a family day out - it's a different story when you're forking out to park at the hospital.

Whether you're a patient, a visitor, or even a member of staff, you're at the hospital because you need to be. So why should you have to pay to park there? And is it right that the hospitals can charge what they like?

Watchdog has found hospital car parks charging anything from £2 a day to £3 an hour. And it's clear from your emails some of you think that's too much.

Kerrie Chavner for one. She parked at her local hospital so she could visit the A&E department, but on discovering the wait would be four hours, decided against it and went back to her car. She left the hospital just eight minutes after arriving. The charge for parking? Three pounds.

Robert McIlveen emailed to say his wife works at a hospital, and the cost of parking there comes out of her wages. In return, she receives a parking permit to display in the car. One day it fell off, and she received a penalty notice for £40. She appealed - pointing out she'd already paid to park there - but LOST. Robert says: "My wife isn't the first that this has happened to - they're even sending £40 fines to patients terminally ill with cancer."

Discrepancies

How much you'll pay depends on where you live - and the discrepancies are about to get much worse. Health authorities in Scotland and Wales this year announced they're scrapping parking charges in their hospital car parks - but the NHS in England has no plans to do the same.

In Scotland, all publicly-operated hospital car parks will abolish their charges by the end of the year. Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon says: "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. The abolition of charges also helps to reduce the financial burden on patients, staff and visitors to hospitals at a time when pressure on family budgets is increasing."

In April, the Welsh Assembly abolished car parking charges in all but ten of the principality's 130 NHS hospitals. By 2011, it's expected only four hospitals in Wales will still charge for parking, due to ongoing contracts with Parking Companies. The Assembly's Health Minister Edwina Hart said: "Car parking charges fall heavily on people frequently attending NHS hospitals, whether they are patients, staff or visitors. They are at best an inconvenience and at worst an unfair expense."

The situation is about to change in Northern Ireland too. In May, Northern Ireland Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey introduced free car parking for patients with cancer and some other critical illnesses - and the new rules will extend to some relatives too. He says: "It is essential that very ill patients who attend hospital on a regular basis do not have the additional stress of worrying about paying for car parking. It is also important that the next of kin of critically ill or high dependency patients, who may be spending long periods in hospital, should not have to pay for parking." He's encouraged individual health trusts to consider making other people exempt from the charges too.

But in England, the health authorities aren't budging. Last year English hospitals raked in £100 million from parking charges. And it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon.

Charges are decided locally

The Department of Health has told us: "We do not think it a sensible use of limited resources to subsidise car parking at hospitals for everyone. Our priority is the safety and speed of healthcare - one of the reasons in England waiting times are shorter. The NHS needs to improve services for patients and maintain a strong financial position - there is no question of choosing between the two."

They point out charges are decided locally by individual trusts, but say all should have exemption and concessionary schemes in place to ensure that patients and carers who visit hospital regularly are not disadvantaged.

But some people feel that's exactly what is happening. Nigel Lewis-Baker told Watchdog he needed intensive daily treatment for prostate cancer at his local hospital (featured in the video clip at the top of this page). But faced with the mounting costs of the hospital car park, and the uncertainly of knowing how long each appointment would take, he felt he had no choice but to park elsewhere, then walk to and from his radiotherapy.

He says: "Apart from the stress of waiting for your appointment, and thinking about what they're going to do to you this time, there's checking the watch to see just how long I've got before the clamps go on to take my car away."

Which hospital is the cheapest?

Watchdog compared the charges of various hospitals and trusts around England. We found that at a time when the rest of the UK is finding ways to scrap or reduce charges, some English hospitals are even putting theirs up.

Some of the cheapest charges we found were at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, where they've been capped so no one pays more than £2 for the whole day. Regular users can also get discounted tickets - a system in place at some other English hospitals too - and there are short-term parking areas with no charge at all.

But one of the most expensive hospital parking charges was, ironically, at London's Royal Free Hospital. A visit there, whether you're a patient or relative, costs £3 an hour.

We visited the Royal Free and asked users of the car park what they thought of the charges (see video clip, above). Everyone we spoke to told us they thought they were unfair.

Unsurprisingly, the hospital doesn't agree. They've told us the charge was set several years ago to deter commuters from using spaces meant for hospital patients and visitors, and it hasn't gone up since. They also point out there are dispensations for certain groups, such as visitors to patients who are near to death or being treated in the intensive treatment unit (ITU), and that regular visitors - such as radiotherapy patients - also qualify for free or substantially reduced charges.

The Royal Free - and other hospitals we spoke to - says money raised from the charges covers the cost of maintaining and improving the car parks. So without the charges, they'd have to find that money elsewhere.

MacMillan Cancer Support is one of the groups campaigning against the charges. It says: "An average cancer patient spends over £300 a year paying hospital parking fees during their treatment - an extra cost they can ill afford as they cope with the stress of cancer."

Profit from car parking

Public service union UNISON points out that, thanks to these charges, NHS staff are injecting millions of pounds into the NHS each year. And even when money for parking is deducted from the salaries of surgeons, doctors and nurses, it doesn't necessarily guarantee them a space. Spokesman Mike Jackson (see video clip, below) says: "It shouldn't be the staff who are subsidising patient care. It's a basic principle here, and those trusts who are making a profit from car parking shouldn't be."

Parking isn't the only area where NHS users in England may feel they're getting a raw deal. This week it was announced that Northern Ireland is set to follow Wales and Scotland in abolishing prescription charges - leaving England the only part of the UK where most patients will still need to pay.

Tell us what you think - should hospital parking charges be scrapped in England too? Are the charges near you particularly high or low? Join the discussion and add your comments here.