Hospital parking charges for disabled drivers are a double-edged sword

HOSPITAL parking fees are a topic of controversy for both the public and the hospital trusts themselves. Auto Express has, in the past, highlighted how the various fees different English trusts charged added up to a whopping £344million between June 2013 and June 2016, with each trust earning on average £949,000 a year.

For one, this is controversial because Wales and Scotland have scrapped hospital parking fees, while English hospitals still charge.

Secondly, the latest figures show that it’s not just able-bodied hospital visitors who are hit with fees, as the Mirror newspaper reports that 140 hospital trusts also require Blue Badge holders to pay for parking.

While many English hospital trusts offer concessionary parking for disabled drivers, if these spaces are filled up – Croydon University Hospital has only 19 bays – Blue Badge drivers are then required to pay the usual parking fee.

In 2014 Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt urged trusts to offer free or reduced parking for disabled drivers. But a number of politicians still call for the practice to be entirely scrapped in England.

In its 2017 election manifesto, Labour proposed scrapping the fees in England and offsetting the £160million deficit by increasing taxes on private health care.

The other side of the argument is that hospitals require the income from parking to pay for equipment. It isn’t fair for disabled drivers to have to pay for hospital parking, but we must ensure that by scrapping fees, we’re not punishing the NHS.

“The Mirror reports that 140 hospital trusts require Blue Badge holders to pay”