NHS Trust allowing harassment of staff via parking charges

NHS Trust allowing harassment of staff via parking charges

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Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Re: the bit in bold, do you have any suggestions?

You've explained the difficulties you have in using public transport. Fair enough. But then I assume everybody who uses your hospital has the same difficulties. Who should the hospital give priority access to? Patients? Visitors? Staff? The extortion as you put it is a way of "managing" the problem.
I should point out my local hospital is out of the centre and is less than 30 years old. There are plenty of spaces for both staff and patients. They certainly have no need to ration it. Quite why they need to charge £2:70 an hour is beyond me, they certainly don't have a problem to manage.

Countdown

39,690 posts

195 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
I should point out my local hospital is out of the centre and is less than 30 years old. There are plenty of spaces for both staff and patients. They certainly have no need to ration it. Quite why they need to charge £2:70 an hour is beyond me, they certainly don't have a problem to manage.
That is odd. Is the parking outsourced? Arguably income generation with the money being used to improve services......

loafer123

15,404 posts

214 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Countdown said:
Re: the bit in bold, do you have any suggestions?

You've explained the difficulties you have in using public transport. Fair enough. But then I assume everybody who uses your hospital has the same difficulties. Who should the hospital give priority access to? Patients? Visitors? Staff? The extortion as you put it is a way of "managing" the problem.
I should point out my local hospital is out of the centre and is less than 30 years old. There are plenty of spaces for both staff and patients. They certainly have no need to ration it. Quite why they need to charge £2:70 an hour is beyond me, they certainly don't have a problem to manage.
Car parks are expensive to build. Why you think that taxpayers should subsidize drivers who use those car parks is beyond me.

MrJuice

3,300 posts

155 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
The problem is probably something to do with PFI. If there's no space to build a multi storey care park, the hospital is probably in a city or town easily accessible by public transport. If there is space, the stupid management have probably entered into an agreement with some vultures somewhere whereby the vultures build the multi storey care park (thereby not adding a liability to the public sector balance sheet) and the vultures then rent the space back to the hospital. Or the vultures run it. Or something along those lines.

This is how all those shiny new hospitals were built in the labour years

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
... bus services have been cut to the point where I couldn'get to work and back and do my contractual hours. To be honest bus services are rubbish round here no matter where you are going and I'm not adversed to using the bus.
I guess that's because most people use their cars though? Take away their cars and the bus service would be better.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
loafer123 said:
Devil2575 said:
Countdown said:
Re: the bit in bold, do you have any suggestions?

You've explained the difficulties you have in using public transport. Fair enough. But then I assume everybody who uses your hospital has the same difficulties. Who should the hospital give priority access to? Patients? Visitors? Staff? The extortion as you put it is a way of "managing" the problem.
I should point out my local hospital is out of the centre and is less than 30 years old. There are plenty of spaces for both staff and patients. They certainly have no need to ration it. Quite why they need to charge £2:70 an hour is beyond me, they certainly don't have a problem to manage.
Car parks are expensive to build. Why you think that taxpayers should subsidize drivers who use those car parks is beyond me.
Eh? Because a car park is part of the hospital. Some people inevitably will need to use their cars so I see no issue at all in the car park comming out of the NHS budget. If I was going to come up with one place where a free car park was justified it would be a hospital.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
Devil2575 said:
... bus services have been cut to the point where I couldn'get to work and back and do my contractual hours. To be honest bus services are rubbish round here no matter where you are going and I'm not adversed to using the bus.
I guess that's because most people use their cars though? Take away their cars and the bus service would be better.
Probably but I can't change that. The service has to be available before I can use it. If you just take away my car I simply won't be able to get places. I ride my bike to work and I walk as much as I can but I can't take my kids to A&E on my bike.
The car as the primary source of personal transport has been the policy off successive governments in the past. It has shaped the way our country is. If we want this to change we need to do more than just try and force people out of cars. The alternatives need to be there first.

Edited by Devil2575 on Sunday 2nd October 18:12

Countdown

39,690 posts

195 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Eh? Because a car park is part of the hospital. Some people inevitably will need to use their cars so I see no issue at all in the car park comming out of the NHS budget. If I was going to come up with one place where a free car park was justified it would be a hospital.
Let's assume the NHS hospital budget was finite and you had to choose between spending the money on a car park OR something else. What would you prefer the hospital not to spend their money on?

Devil2575

13,400 posts

187 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Devil2575 said:
Eh? Because a car park is part of the hospital. Some people inevitably will need to use their cars so I see no issue at all in the car park comming out of the NHS budget. If I was going to come up with one place where a free car park was justified it would be a hospital.
Let's assume the NHS hospital budget was finite and you had to choose between spending the money on a car park OR something else. What would you prefer the hospital not to spend their money on?
I either pay for the parking through general taxation as part of NHS funding or I pay for it when I use it. I'd prefer the former. If you want to reduce the number of car parking spaces then the shape of our towns needs to change. At least my local hospital provides plenty of cycle parking for staff, all they meed to do now is make the main roads through town a bit more cycle friendly and more people might choose to ride in. Mind you I suspect the working hours, requirement to be on call etc are not conducive to cycling or public transport for that matter. At the end of the day you can't compell people to work in our hospitals and if it is not a good place to work people will go elsewhere.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35667939

Dizeee

18,168 posts

205 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Reading the op post it seems he is in the same situation my wife is i.e the hospital provide barriered staff only access car parking for staff that nobody else can enter yet they then employ the parking company to sting those same staff. Nothing to do with public at all.

Countdown

39,690 posts

195 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
I either pay for the parking through general taxation as part of NHS funding or I pay for it when I use it. I'd prefer the former.
There is a limit to how much we can pay for via general taxation, so the NHS has to prioritise. It can either cut medical services or charge people for parking.

We can't expect to keep increasing general taxation just so that the Public Sector can afford to provide everything that might be needed.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Countdown said:
We can't expect to keep increasing general taxation just so that the Public Sector can afford to provide everything that might be neededwanted.
FTFY

Downward

3,490 posts

102 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Downward said:
Doesn't help the NHS is full of whining middle aged women who expect a parking space for their car when there clearly isn't enough to go round.
Won't even entertain other ways of getting to work even though they have no more commitments outside of work now the kids have grown up.
You know this to be the case?
Yep.
Worked in numerous trusts and hospitals over the past 16 years in contracting

Downward

3,490 posts

102 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Devil2575 said:
What is unreasonable is not providing sufficient spaces for staff to park.
No it isn't (unreasonable). Car usage has grown and in many cases hospitals are located where there simply isn't enough space to accommodate both staff and patients. So hospitals have to somehow control the numbers of spaces they have to give to staff and they do this via using permits.

OTOH hospitals tend to be quite well served by public transport. If they're not on a bus route they tend to have a dedicated bus service. But let's be honest, most people would hoose car rather than bus if they could. That's fair enough but it's not the hospital's responsibility to accommodate this.
Not allowed.
Have to have a Green Travel plan.
The council won't give permission to build car parks over a certain level.


Core elements of an active travel plan will
• Set targets for reducing the number of single occupancy car journeys to your NHS site, in line with your Trust’s overall sustainable development action plan.
• Encourage more sustainable forms of travel to the site, for example cycling, walking, car sharing or using the bus or train.
• Reduce the amount of travel undertaken for work by encouraging alternatives e.g. web, video and tele conferencing.
• Introduce a at rate for business mileage - regardless of the mode of transport and encourage the use of Band A ef cient vehicles.
• Provide the supporting infrastructure e.g. Lockers, showers, secure bike storage.
• Improve cycle and route safety by installing better lighting and signing.
• Collaborate with staff, local community, businesses and transport providers to develop a travel solution that
is tailored to your area.
• Promote the new approach to travelling for all staff, patients and visitors via your communications depart-
ment e.g. produce maps marked with active travel options.

Big problem in this area due to 2 hospitals and the university

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/health/queen-...

Gareth1974

3,408 posts

138 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
My wife currently 'enjoys' free parking at the hospital where she's based. We live close enough to the hospital that she doesn't need a car to actually get to work, but as she is a community nurse, she is obliged to have a car to visit her clients (several visits a day spread across a large area) from there. Her hospital is proposing to charge her to park in the near future, which seems a bit unfair as she only uses her car to fulfil her duties.

Downward

3,490 posts

102 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Gareth1974 said:
My wife currently 'enjoys' free parking at the hospital where she's based. We live close enough to the hospital that she doesn't need a car to actually get to work, but as she is a community nurse, she is obliged to have a car to visit her clients (several visits a day spread across a large area) from there. Her hospital is proposing to charge her to park in the near future, which seems a bit unfair as she only uses her car to fulfil her duties.
It's a bit crazy.

We had 1 person who has to collect things from other hospitals but has a central hospital base.

Of course she has to apply for a pass. I'd just tell them send a courier to collect them then at way more than 40p a mile

Gavia

7,627 posts

90 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
What is unreasonable is not providing sufficient spaces for staff to park.
If everyone works the same fixed hours then lift sharing is an option that an employer can help facilitate but if they want flexibility and staff to work anti social hours then they should be as accomodating as possible and offer free parking. All this kind of soddy treatment of employees does is drive the good ones, who do have options, away. I've seen it happen in private companies where short sighted management think they can get away with treating employees poorly and then can't understand why they can't keep good people.
How is it unreasonable? Why is the NHS so special that every staff member deserves a car parking space? Or are you saying that all employers must provide a space for all employees no matter what business? That will cause some serious issues for city centre business, even businesses based on new Business Parks will struggle to provide a space for everyone.

PF62

3,575 posts

172 months

Sunday 2nd October 2016
quotequote all
Greenish said:
They have even managed to trace our new address that we had not changed on the vehicles V5 document, how on earth can they have done this? If the current owners of the house have done this then they have either a) unlawfully opened mail or b) disclosed our address without our consent.
As an aside,
a) isn't unlawful (although a lot of people think it is)
b) doesn't need your consent; if you don't want the new owners to know where you now live, don't tell them.

voyds9

8,488 posts

282 months

Monday 3rd October 2016
quotequote all
Gavia said:
How is it unreasonable? Why is the NHS so special that every staff member deserves a car parking space? Or are you saying that all employers must provide a space for all employees no matter what business? That will cause some serious issues for city centre business, even businesses based on new Business Parks will struggle to provide a space for everyone.
This.

PurpleMoonlight

22,362 posts

156 months

Monday 3rd October 2016
quotequote all
Dizeee said:
Reading the op post it seems he is in the same situation my wife is i.e the hospital provide barriered staff only access car parking for staff that nobody else can enter yet they then employ the parking company to sting those same staff. Nothing to do with public at all.
Does it not occur to you that the problem is with the drivers not abiding by the rules rather than the parking company enforcing them?

Without the former the latter would not exist!