LET HOSPITAL PATIENTS PARK FOR FREE
Expert demands end to charges on sick and visitors in boost for our campaign
LORD Robert Winston says all hospital patients and visitors should get to park for free.
In a boost for the Daily Mirror’s campaign, the TV doctor blasted “unfair” charges and blamed the Tories’ underfunding of the NHS.
He said: “I am in favour of free parking for patients and families.”
LORD Robert Winston has told how hospital parking fines make him so angry he has refused to pay them.
The doctor and TV presenter believes patients and visitors should park for free after the Mirror launched a campaign demanding charges are abolished.
Last night nearly 13,000 people had backed us by signing our petition.
Professor Winston, a Labour peer, said: “They [the fines] do make me so furious.
“I myself have refused to pay these fines on a number of occasions.
“It has happened from time to time. I was visiting people who were ill and, on another occasion, delivering supplies.
“I do reply to them but I challenge it and I found if you are persistent with them [parking operators] they give up.”
Our campaign comes after figures showed NHS car parks – run by profitmaking private firms – raked in half a million pounds a day with hourly charges up to £4. Yet only a small fraction of that revenue goes to healthcare.
Prof Winston wants a fairer system but stopped short of calling for a universal ban on charges.
He said: “While it might be a good idea to abolish parking charges there could be those who abuse it.
“I think tickets that can be validated in hospitals could be a way around it.
“I am in favour of parking being free for patients and their families. With staff it depends on the site of the hospital and the access to public transport.
“It is certainly an unfair system at the moment, there is no doubt about that.”
Prof Winston, a leading fertility expert, said the exploitation of the sick was a symptom of NHS funding pressures.
He added: “There is a massive problem that the Government is hugely underfunding the NHS.
“Hospital managers are doing whatever they can to claw back revenue to pay for patient services. The parking issue is simply a symptom of this major problem.”
Charities, trade unions and politicians have joined the Mirror in calling for Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to act.
Desperately ill patients have told how they were left with bills of hundreds of pounds due to frequent hospital visits.
Relatives said they were fined after arriving with a loved one in a life-threatening condition. NHS workers have said they had parking charges deducted from their wages but were still unable to get a space and ended up being fined for parking in the wrong bay.
We are demanding England is brought in to line with Wales and Scotland, which banned parking charges at hospital car parks– except for a handful still locked into private finance initiative contracts.
A spokesman for NHS Providers, representing trusts, has said the parking issue is “complex”. He explained: “Not all NHS trusts will own car parks on their sites. This means there is some variation in what patients in different local areas will pay. Trusts do their best to minimise these charges.”
The spokesman added: “The revenue is mainly used to maintain facilities but also to reinvest in patient care.
“If this funding is removed then it will need to be found from other sources.
“A key issue here is that hospitals and other NHS trusts continue to be funded below the levels they should be.”