NHS Trust allowing harassment of staff via parking charges

[Sheepshanks]

voyds9 said:

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.

City centre hospitals generally have car parks around them - OK, it can be expensive, but at least there's somewhere to park.

On the other hand I can think of several hospitals around me that are on out-of-town sites where there really isn't an alternative if on-site parking is full, so I do think it is incumbent upon the hospital to make sufficient parking provision for everyone using the hospital. At one site that has involved remote parking with a shuttle bus.

[Devil2575]

Countdown said:

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......

No, car park is run by the Hospital AFAIK.

[PAULJ5555]

I work on a site like that and I even have to drive past my building and park a mile past it on the public roads because there is not enough spaces.

I don't see what people are moaning about just park properly and don't get a ticket how hard can it be.
If they don't like the rules then don't park there and park off site. The problem is most people are lazy and want to park as close as possible.

Edited by PAULJ5555 on Monday 3rd October 12:30

[Devil2575]

Gavia said:

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.

I'm not saying anything about how private companies operate. This is just my opinion with respect to hospitals.

A hospital should be about convenience for both patients and staff.

I get that the NHS needs to save money and there isn't an infinate supply of money but we spend a lower percentage of GDP on healthcare than most other developed countries and the cost of parking is going to be a drop in the ocean.

[frankenstein12]

In any normal business I think staff parking is a question mark on requirement but for things like the NHS staff should be given parking on site at no cost.

The simple reality is nurses and others within the NHS are not paid huge salaries that can be spent on parking at or near work all day every day. I have no issues with a parking company controlling the staff car park and handing tickets out to those who park badly or in the wrong bays.

I also think there should be a 1 hour free period of parking at all hospitals for members of public however you would need to have a patient ref number to validate the parking so that if someone rushes to hospital they do not have to faff around with parking while the person they care about is being seen initially.

[kiethton]

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.

If the car is required (contractually) to fulfill duties you'd pay for the parking and fill an expense form out no?

[Pickled]

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.

Im sure I can recall that business have to pay rates on parking spaces and there may even be a BIK aspect as well.

[Countdown]

kiethton said:

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.

If the car is required (contractually) to fulfill duties you'd pay for the parking and fill an expense form out no?

Depends how generous your employer is. Some would argue that the monthly car allowance covers ancillary costs such as parking. In other cases I've come across if you get EUCA the employer provides you with a free space. (Actually what happened in the latter situation was the Employer reviewed all the EUCA recipients and moved half of them to Casual user, saving on car allowances AND reducing the number of spaces they had to provide]

[Hol]

Pickled said:

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.

Im sure I can recall that business have to pay rates on parking spaces and there may even be a BIK aspect as well.

I have worked for companies where the few available spaces re allocated in a split of management/seniority & length of service. Getting promoted actually had a tangible benefit. - This benefit I think comes under the BIK mentioned above now.


That aside, I have also worked for companies where you can only use the staff parking spaces 4 days a week, or ONLY if you car share. So day 5, you park & ride, or car share.

But, I have never worked for a company (yet!), that has the available space to provide parking to ALL of their employees, ALL of the time.


Its a luxury, that the vast majority of this countries hard working employees have never, and will never enjoy.

[Devil2575]

Hol said:

Its a luxury, that the vast majority of this countries hard working employees have never, and will never enjoy.

That's a strong statement.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the location of employment.

[Gareth1974]

Countdown said:

kiethton said:

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.

If the car is required (contractually) to fulfill duties you'd pay for the parking and fill an expense form out no?

Depends how generous your employer is. Some would argue that the monthly car allowance covers ancillary costs such as parking. In other cases I've come across if you get EUCA the employer provides you with a free space. (Actually what happened in the latter situation was the Employer reviewed all the EUCA recipients and moved half of them to Casual user, saving on car allowances AND reducing the number of spaces they had to provide]

She just gets a fairly miserly pence per mile payment, certainly not a monthly allowance.

[Hol]

Devil2575 said:

Hol said:

Its a luxury, that the vast majority of this countries hard working employees have never, and will never enjoy.

That's a strong statement.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the location of employment.

Oh, I think an awful lot has to do with location.

Take any Household-Name shop/Bank/Business or Solicitor/Gov Office in any town or city and count the number of employees. Its a good bet that if they actually have any spaces, its less than the people working there.

I'm sure some of them get public transport, but some of those only do that, because they don't have a free parking space.

[bad company]

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.

Bit of prejudice there methinks.

[Sheepshanks]

Gareth1974 said:

She just gets a fairly miserly pence per mile payment, certainly not a monthly allowance.

"Miserly" is odd - my daughter does this, I can't remember the precise rate but it's sixty something pence per mile.

In practice she rarely gets it though - most trips are from home and are lower mileage than to base and even on the odd occasion it's claimable getting it signed and paid proves impossible.

For a while she was based where they had to pay to park but her dept was issued with a few parking passes which they had to share.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Monday 3rd October 14:53

[Sheepshanks]

Hol said:

Take any Household-Name shop/Bank/Business or Solicitor/Gov Office in any town or city and count the number of employees. Its a good bet that if they actually have any spaces, its less than the people working there.

You'd know that when you took the job. Many of the "whining middle aged women" in the NHS will have been able to park free, and with no issues, for years. It's a fairly recent thing that it's become a problem.

[Gareth1974]

Sheepshanks said:

Gareth1974 said:

She just gets a fairly miserly pence per mile payment, certainly not a monthly allowance.

"Miserly" is odd - my daughter does this, I can't remember the precise rate but it's sixty something pence per mile.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Monday 3rd October 14:53

It's 56p for the first 3500 miles a year, then 20p after than. My wife does 6-7000 miles a year on business, so about half of it is at the lower rate.

[Sheepshanks]

Gareth1974 said:

It's 56p for the first 3500 miles a year, then 20p after than. My wife does 6-7000 miles a year on business, so about half of it is at the lower rate.

Isn't that because over 3500 they want staff to have lease cars?

[PAULJ5555]

bad company 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.

Bit of prejudice there methinks.

That's part of the problem, others wont let go of permits their no longer entitled to, parking departments have lost control of the situation.

[Biker 1]

Thank fk I don't work for the NHS, or any other big outfit, judging by some of the stories of woe here....
The last time I went to hospital was to take my terminally ill mother for a brain scan. It cost about £2/hour, but just seemed like robbery to me. Surely the UK must be about the worst for this sort of parking scam, or are there other countries out there with similar or even harsher parking arrangements??

[Gareth1974]

Sheepshanks said:

Gareth1974 said:

It's 56p for the first 3500 miles a year, then 20p after than. My wife does 6-7000 miles a year on business, so about half of it is at the lower rate.

Isn't that because over 3500 they want staff to have lease cars?

Lease cars used to be a good option, they were subsidised, in the last 18 months or so, the subsidy element seems to have been removed - I looked at it for my wife (with help from the lease deals thread) and found much better deals on the open market. If you have a lease car, the allowance is reduced to a flat 12p a mile, so you need to get 45mpg to even cover the cost of fuel (more if the this allowance is taxable, which I think it is).