HOSPITAL CAR PARK FURY
NHS WORKERS LEFT STRUGGLING FINANCIALLY AFTER BEING FINED FOR PARKING AT WALES’ BIGGEST HOSPITAL
STAFF at Wales’ largest hospital prosecuted for unpaid parking tickets say they are depressed, stressed and struggling to make ends meet because of the “extortionate” repayments.
In July 2017 a cohort of 79 Cardiff and Vale University Health Board employees lost a battle at Cardiff’s Civil Justice Court over 2,057 unpaid parking charge notices (PCNs) at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW).
It means they are being forced to pay £128 per outstanding ticket – which originally cost just £1.05 – with one employee allegedly facing a bill of close to £10,000.
Last week the group managed to repay in full the £26,203 in legal fees owed to the court, but many continue to face an uphill battle to repay their individual fines.
While many of the NHS staff admit to being in the wrong when it came to their parking, many doctors, nurses and other employees have criticised the lack of staff spaces.
Some claim they did not pay the PCNs, not realising the tickets were legally enforceable, while others said they were wrongly advised not to pay the fines by their legal representatives before the court hearing.
A care assistant at the UHW said she has to pay back £4,500 for 26 unpaid tickets – which equates to about a quarter of her overall salary.
“The amount of stress this has caused me has been enough to begin anti-depressants, which I still take,” said the single mum.
“I am not arguing about paying to use the car park, but the costs added to a £1.05 parking ticket are totally unreasonable. Some of these tickets have been issued twice on one shift – which I believe is called ‘ghost ticketing’ – others are for parking without a permit which I was then denied.
“They’re so strict that they have even given tickets when a tyre is touching the white line [of the space]. We were also told to ignore any parking tickets as they were unenforceable, which I unfortunately believed.
“The whole injustice of this situation and the anxiety and stress it has caused has had a huge impact.”
Another member of staff said she has felt “physically sick” with worry over the massive repayments.
“We have been made to feel like criminals,” she said. “All we have done is come to work to care for our patients and parked in our place of work which does not have adequate parking.
“I feel physically sick when I think about the money. I’ve cried and stressed and feel so let down that we’ve been put in this position.
“If I treated my patients as the health board have treated us I would be struck off, without a doubt.”
The hearing at Cardiff’s Civil Justice Court specifically looked at 206 of these PCNs. But it is understood there are many thousands of additional outstanding fines which have not been paid.
Cardiff North MP Anna McMorrin said the issue has put a huge stress on the hardworking members of staff affected. She said: “Many have been made ill through the worry of it all when they were simply trying to do their jobs in our NHS.
“I am concerned that these fines unfairly penalise our hardworking NHS staff and a resolution must be found. One of my constituents has been a nurse at UHW for over 20 years.
“She is one of the hundreds of people who have been issued parking tickets for parking on site and is deeply worried about paying it back.
“She explained that in most cases they have received a parking ticket not from non-payment of the £1.05 parking fee per shift, but because they were not re-issued a staff parking permit. The fine per parking ticket is now £128 and in some cases this amounts to thousands of pounds.”
The UHW car parks are run by the private firm Indigo, formerly known as Vinci, which employs parking attendants to dish out the fines.
But the contract with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board comes to an end on June 5, when the site will become free to use for visitors, patients and staff.
It comes a whole decade after former Health Minister Edwina Hart announced in 2008 that hospital car parking charges were to be scrapped in Wales unless external contracts were already in place.
Geoff Walsh, director of capital, estates and facilities at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said: “Car parking on this site remains an emotive issue for the health board.
“As part of our Sustainable Travel plan we are committed to working on a solution to finding alternative options for patients, visitors and staff, enabling people to access health services in a safe environment.”
An Indigo spokesman said: “At the end of March 2018 Cardiff County Court contacted the motorists involved in the July 2017 court case, ordering them to pay the cost award imposed by the court.”