‘Parking fees are no way to pay for underfunded NHS’ City NHS trust tops national league as it takes £4.8m from drivers
ABIRMINGHAM hospital trust has topped the national league for car parking income – netting more than £4 million last year.
The Bordesley Green-based Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust made a staggering £4,841,108.
This included £3,465,357 from patients and visitors, and £1,375,751 from staff. And almost £40,000 was collected by the trust in car park fines.
Hospitals within the trust include Birmingham Heartlands, Solihull, Good Hope and Birmingham Chest Clinic.
New national data shows that NHS hospitals are making more money than ever from car park charges, with more than half charging disabled visitors and making thousands every year in fines.
The Patients Association said it was unfair hospital parking in Wales and Scotland was largely free, but patients and visitors in England were forced to pay.
Hospitals across England made more than £120 million from charging patients, staff and visitors for parking in the last year, up five per cent on the year before and rising year on year, according to information collected by the Press Association.
Some 120 NHS trusts across England were asked to give figures on parking charges and fines under the Freedom of Information Act, with 89 providing responses. Overall, NHS trusts netted £120,662,650 in 2015/16 in car park charges, up from £114,873,867 the year before, the study found.
The investigation also found that almost half of all NHS trusts charge disabled people for parking in some, or all, of their spaces for disabled people.
Many trusts defended their revenues, saying that money was put back into patient care or was spent on maintaining car parks or grounds. Others claimed their sheer size, and the fact that they served busy neigh- A HEART of England Trust spokesman said: “We are a large trust covering three hospital sites with 11,000 staff. We see more than one million patients and a similar amount of visitors and relatives each year.
“The Trust does not take any form of profit from car parking charges as the funds are used to fund capital charges, utility costs, security and car parking management services, as well as the upkeep, maintenance and investment in the car parks which includes CCTV systems, grounds, and road safety.
“We recognise that parking charges can be a very significant financial burden for some and so we offer discounts to anyone visiting our hospitals for more than one day, giving frequent visitors greater savings, and free car parking to those in receipt of income-related benefits.
“We also offer a wide range of discounted multiple day tickets, including passes for those attending on a regular basis to particular wards.” dered by the vulnerable.
“We are not talking about insignificant amounts of money, either. It is alarming that trusts think it is OK to charge people so much money for visiting a hospital. We take a very clear line that car parking fees need to be scrapped or strictly capped.”
Ms Murphy added it was also unfair that hospital parking in Wales and Scotland was largely free but that patients in England were still forced to pay.
Andrew Haldenby, of the think tank Reform, said no-one went into the NHS to set up a car park but charges stopped commuters and shoppers filling the spaces.
The parking charges income, he said, amounted to “a lot of money”, adding: “If NHS hospitals had to suddenly lose that money, that genuinely would be a backward step for the NHS.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it expected hospitals to follow its guidelines and put concessions in place for those who need the most help – including disabled people, carers and staff who sick, injured and
The onus on meeting the funding crisis should not be shouldered by the sick Patients Association