Parking squeeze hurting hospital

Health bosses are being urged to consider building a multistorey car park to ease parking problems at a West Lothian hospital.

Lothian MSP and Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said the difficulty in finding parking spaces at St John’s Hospital in Livingston meant patients were missing appointments.

He suggested the NHS Lothian board might find a philan- thropist willing to step in and help fund a new car park.

Campaigners said parking had been a long-running problem at St John’s that had never been properly tackled.

Ellen Glass, of the campaign group Action to Save St John’s, said: “They never really built enough car parking and it has caused a big problem for staff.

“Some people use the hospital car park as a park-and-ride. They leave their car there and jump on a bus into Edinburgh.

“And now that services like ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) have been moved from Edinburgh to St John’s, that means more clinics and more people coming for appointments with their car.”

Mr Briggs called for the issue to be raised at the next NHS Lothian board meeting.

He said health bosses needed an “imaginative” solution to the problem from expanding opportunities for additional parking close to the hospital to seeking funding to build a multi-storey or constructing another car park close by and running a shuttle bus.