Hospital parking in county is the most expensive

HOSPITALS in Leicestershire have the most expensive parking in England.

New figures from NHS Digital show University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust had a gross income of £3.4 million in 2018/19 from parking for patients and visitors, and £1.5 million from parking for staff.

It cost a total of £1.5 million to provide parking at the trust’s sites last year.

This means the profit from car parks in was £3.4 million last year.

Depending on how the car parks are run all or some of this money may go back to the trust or to companies running services on their behalf.

It costs an average of £3.30 per hour for patients and visitors to park at the trust’s hospitals.

Parking charges tripled last year - up from an average of £1.10.

Staff pay 13p per hour on average at the trust’s hospitals, the same as in 2017/18.

Staff are more likely to have parking permits - so, for example, if they are paying £2.40 a day, that would equate to 10p per hour.

Leicester Royal Infirmary also charges for disabled parking.

Across England, NHS trusts saw a gross income of £185.6 million in 2018/19 from parking for patients and visitors, and £86.2 million from parking for staff.

This is the total amount received from parking, including fines and parking permits.

It does not include PFI, management or running costs.

Car parking services across England’s trusts cost £71.2 million to provide.

Overall, NHS car parks made £200.6 million in profits after the costs of providing parking services were taken into account.

This includes acute hospital trusts, mental health and community trusts.

Out of 1,138 trust sites across England, 357 (or 31%) charge patients for parking.

Hospital sites, however, where much more likely to charge patients for parking.

There were 300 sites out of 474 run by acute trusts (63%) charged for parking in 2018/19.

Sites run by University Hospitals Leicester, including Leicester Royal Infirmary and Leicester General Hospital, were the most expensive place to park as a patient, at an average of £3.30 per hour.