Shame of hospital parking fines for NHS staff

WE ALL recognise that sinking feeling when you return to your car to find a little yellow envelope under the windscreen. For the staff at University Hospital Wales, it has become a regular occurrence.

The problem is there are simply not enough spaces in their staff car park to go around — with the result that the private parking company hired to police it, French-based Indigo, has issued a flurry of fines which, if paid, would total almost £13 million. You might have thought that under the circumstances — essential NHS staff on call or working overtime — they could be cut some slack.

But no. Indigo, which has an annual turnover of £24 million, wants its pound of flesh. And, thanks to District Judge Clare Coates, who presided over a three-day test case hearing at Cardiff’s civil justice court, it looks as though they’re going to get it — even if the result will mean financial ruin for the nurses, doctors and support staff involved. The judge ruled that three workers — whom Indigo says have each racked up more than 100 parking tickets — must pay £128 for every one of them, and the result is binding on 72 other cases.

Heartening, isn’t it, to live in a country where dedicated NHS staff on minuscule salaries are pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by judicial idiocy to satisfy the needs of foreign corporations?