NHS trusts in Shropshire raise almost £2m in parking charges

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, collected £1.6m in 2017/18.

Meanwhile, the Robert Jones And Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RJAH) received £361,190 from parking fees.

The figures, which were released by NHS Digital, have been described as a ‘tax’ on hard-pressed employees and the sick.

Penalty

SaTH made £1.1m from parking charges paid by patients and visitors to its sites, while it collected £517,030 from charges and penalty fines incurred by NHS workers.

The breakdown at RJAH, which runs the orthopaedic hospital near Oswestry, involved £293,220 being paid by patients and visitors and £67,970 by staff.

A spokesman for SaTH said: "We understand that the issue of car parking charges continues to be an emotive one.

"At SaTH, any revenue generated is reinvested in patient care, with public parking paying for the equivalent of 40 nurses.

“Some is also used for the ongoing management of car parks at both our hospitals in order to cope with the large volumes of people that use them and to ensure that cars are parked safely.

"Since we moved to a tariff system for the public, we have seen long-stay parking reduce by 30 per cent which has in turn freed up space for patients and their families."

SaTH said visitors can park at its hospitals for up to 20 minutes without paying a fee.

There is also no charge for patients receiving dialysis, radiotherapy or chemotherapy and people visiting hospital for issues connected with bereavement.

Alternatives

The trust said it is working hard to make alternatives to driving more attractive for both patients and staff, including a new bus stop at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

RJAH said its charges were among the lowest in England for patients, visitors and staff, and the income received is reinvested in patient care.

NHS trusts across England made a combined total of almost £70 million from staff parking charges over the same period.

Almost £157 million was raised from charges incurred by patients and visitors.

Unite, a union which represents around 100,000 health workers, has slammed the “scandalous” figures, which it said amounted to a “tax on hard-pressed” employees.

Sarah Carpenter, national officer for health at Unite, said: “This pernicious trend is replicated by financially squeezed trusts across England – our members are being used as an extra income stream for these trusts.”

Unacceptable

British Medical Association council chair, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, added that it was “unacceptable” for hospitals to plug financial gaps by charging and imposing fines on staff.

Patients’ rights campaigners the Patients Association has also criticised the existence of parking charges for patients, describing them as “a charge on people who are unwell, levied on them because they are unwell”.

The figures represent the gross income earned by the NHS and do not take into account its own costs for providing car parking.

Decisions on how much to charge patients, staff and visitors to NHS sites are made by individual trusts.

However, the Department of Health and Social Care has issued guidance on how organisations can make sure their policies are fair.

NHS Improvement said income generated was used to pay the costs of providing parking, while excess funds were put into clinical services.