Hospital Car Parking Charges

[Tetchytyke]

Now I'll grant that if your wife was required to have a car for her work, then that's a bit of a special situation, and in that case, it would be pretty unreasonable for an employer to expect her to pay to park it at work.

She had to pay, and she's NHS staff, so very relevant to the conversation.

I think that would be a reasonable position if it wasn't for all the harm to wider society that each car journey causes, and the need therefore to discourage people from driving.

This keeps getting repeated as though it's some universal truth, and justification for it all. It also assumes that public transport is a viable alternative.

A&E where I live was moved to a shiny new hospital in Cramlington. To get there from here, it is a 45-60 minute bus ride (every 30 mins) to Cramlington and then another 15 minutes bus ride (but only one bus an hour, and not evenings or Sundays) to the hospital. Or I can drive, ten minutes in normal traffic. When my wife went into labour, guess how we got there.

This A&E now covers the whole of Northumberland, because the local hospitals in Whitley Bay, Hexham, Morpeth, Alnwick, Blyth and Ashington have all been downgraded or closed.

And it's no different elsewhere. I lived in Hemel Hempstead; the nearest major hospitals with A&E and surgery facilities were in Stevenage or Watford, after local hospitals in Hemel, St Albans, Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City were closed or downgraded. Good luck on public transport in Hertfordshire, you'll need it!

And then we get into more specialist treatment. The Freeman Hospital covers the whole of northern England, including Cumbria, Durham and North Yorkshire, for many specialist treatments. The idea of getting the bus to your cancer treatment if you live 150 miles away is, well, an interesting proposition.

You can't ethically close all the local hospitals and centralise services then rinse people when they have to drive to get to them.

 

[radamfi]

This keeps getting repeated as though it's some universal truth, and justification for it all. It also assumes that public transport is a viable alternative.

You also have to remember that not everyone has a car and not everyone can drive. That is critical to the discussion. Are we really saying that people who can't drive or don't have a car should be excluded from certain NHS treatment? Because that follows from the argument that you need a car because public transport is inadequate.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You also have to remember that not everyone has a car and not everyone can drive. That is critical to the discussion. Are we really saying that people who can't drive or don't have a car should be excluded from certain NHS treatment? Because that follows from the argument that you need a car because public transport is inadequate.

I'd imagine the majority of people either (a) drive, or (b) know someone who could help them get to hospital by car. For most, public transport would be a last resort if attending, say, A&E. A taxi would be another option, but if you've got to go a long way that gets VERY expensive.

I agree the situation is rather regressive, though I'm not sure how you fix it.

 

[radamfi]

Is there actually a hospital that someone who normally relies on public transport cannot reach? People on this thread have been complaining about public transport journey times taking a long time but people who don't have the option of a car will already be used to that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is there actually a hospital that someone who normally relies on public transport cannot reach?

Probably more depends on their origin. There are several small villages around MK which would not have a connection to MK Hospital by public transport out of hours.

 

[radamfi]

Probably more depends on their origin.

When I say "someone who normally relies on public transport", I mean someone who has a regular bus/train service. People without a car who have a limited daytime service and no evening or Sunday service are already socially excluded. There is also the question of what "out of hours" means. Some people would argue that public transport is inadequate because it can't get them to A+E at 2 o'clock in the morning. That would mean almost everyone in the world has inadequate public transport! Even in Switzerland overnight service is generally restricted to weekends and only in certain areas.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Is there actually a hospital that someone who normally relies on public transport cannot reach?

Depends how you define "cannot". The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital- the emergency hospital for most of the county- has one bus an hour, with the last bus before 6pm.

Obviously that one bus an hour can be used, but...

 

[edwin_m]

The hospitals in Nottingham use the surplus from parking to pay for measures such as subsidized park and ride, which in some cases is a shorter walk than the on-site car park because the bus stops at several places round the hospital sites. Queens Medical Centre is also the only hospital in the UK as far as I know to have a rail (tram) stop on site.

 

[radamfi]

Depends how you define "cannot". The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital- the emergency hospital for most of the county- has one bus an hour, with the last bus before 6pm.

Obviously that one bus an hour can be used, but...

You are probably talking about the 57, but there is also a 58 which runs later, half hourly from 17:13 to 20:13.

https://bustimes.org/services/58-east-cramlington-east-hartford

There are other bus stops within walking distance that offer a more frequent service.

The hospital website even mentions a free service from Berwick and Hexham for people visiting patients.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There are other bus stops within walking distance that offer a more frequent service.

I'd forgotten about the 58. The other stops aren't within walking distance though- it's about 3/4 mile. If you're able to walk that far, you probably don't need to be at NSECH!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

When my father was in intensive care in May 2014 (his prognosis was not good and in fact died a couple of days later) the IC department gave me and my family car park passes so we could come as often as we wanted with no charge. Very compassionate. I suppose systems could be open to abuse but free for all car parking is not a good idea IMHO. It encourages car use