Hospital parking fees. What's the answer

[cadygal257]

Just watching morning news and it's a big topic this morning. I'm just not sure what the right answer is.
I spend a lot of time at three separate hospitals.

Hospital A- near a city centre, if they didn't charge for parking it would be full of people who work or shop nearby

Hospital b- similar issue but near a large town centre, so again would be full of people working in the nearest town

Hospital c. Could offer free parking as no big shops or business nearby

I suppose you could introduce a "verified parking system" but that's got to be paid for as well and who covers that's

I honestly think there is no easy answer to this and believe me I would highly benefit from free hospital parking, dread to think what I spend each month

Public transport is fine for well people. Many people using the hospital frequently are very elderly or unwell. They need a taxi or a lift to the hospital.

I took public transport to the hospital when I needed an occasional hospital visit when young. My DH can not manage to use public transport so we now drive.
People able to use public transport are likely to be those who only occasionally visit the hospital. You have to be realistic about who uses hospitals.

That's before you find you can't get a wheelchair on the bus because the spaces are all taken.

(Assuming no dropped kerbs were blocked on your way to the bus stop).

We do have buses to the hospital but it takes an hour plus a 15 minute walk to the bus stop. Or 20 minutes by car.

I also went by car when visiting my terminally ill father. My DH drove. I did not want to sit crying on the bus.

There are two relatively easy fixes for a lot of hospital parking, but they're not very palatable to a lot of people. They wouldn't solve problems on their own but even so...

1. There's a MASSIVE Monday to Friday, 9-5 culture at a lot hospitals. Yes people do work out of hours. But a lot of people don't. A lot of car parks have massive pressure during the day that just is not there out of hours. In my experience hospital bosses are not very into non-patient-facing staff working at home or out of hours.

1. A lot of hospitals are seen as 'temples' of healthcare. A lot of people access hospital sites to receive healthcare that could definitely be done somewhere else... e.g. routine phlebotomy. A lot of patients this that they aren't getting the best care if they're not actually at the hospital.

Food for thought anyway.

I agree with that idea to reduce hospital parking needs.

My question is, who do you think will be driving these 24/7 buses? We already have a shortage of bus drivers in the UK, and I'm not sure there are going to be many applicants for the 3am shift.

The bus would need a lot of wheelchair spaces.

My experience has been that in some circumstances hospitals will pay for patient parking costs.

It would.

Although that's the theoretically easier part. Buses can be designed with loads of wheelchair spaces. They just usually aren't, because it's not made a high enough priority.

But running a bus service 24/7, that's phenomenally difficult. There are very few areas of the country with frequent buses available all the time, even in the centres of densely populated cities. And there aren't actually that many people who want to drive buses in the wee small hours.

Any reform ideas have to take into account that inflexible jobs having to be done in a set place at a set time are often difficult to recruit for now. That's going to be even harder in hospitals that run 24/7 and are outside major population centres.

My question is, who do you think will be driving these 24/7 buses?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/11/uk-government-relax-rules-18-year-olds-driving-buses

I mean, great, but how many 18 year olds are going to be available and suitable to drive buses at unsociable hours?

As many as older people, possibly more because they're less likely to have caring/parental responsibilities.

It might be an attractive career option for someone who doesn't want to go to university and isn't attracted to other jobs as it can be full time, if unsocial hours, permanent, pension etc. So possibly a less worse option than retail, hospitality or trades.

Although more 18+ bus drivers will mean that more of us will have to suffer the shock that I did when I got on the bus the other day and saw that it was apparently been driven by a child, as in 'you know you're getting old when police officers, and bus drivers it seems start to look too young to be doing the job'.

It was a caustic posting. The reality is what with small boats and Rwanda and small boats, there is no real reason for the government to do anything about hospital parking.

Anyway, isn't the NHS all fixed now ?

@Bjorkdidit My DH would be interested in driving buses if the drivers did not keep getting attacked. That is why lots of people do not want to drive buses, especially in unsocial hours.

Yeah I thought it might be! Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I doubt it'll be as many as older people. The age cohort is smaller and they're less likely to have any kind of licence or experience in the first place. There are probably some 18 year olds who'd be happy to drive a bus and were only being stopped by the age limit. But it's not going to be a lot.

For me, it's the kids teachers who get younger every year! Although I think there is actually some truth in that.

Buses should be one the first vehicles to go driverless anyway.

And then you’ll have the same issues than when people say we should have trains with no controllers.
Anti social behaviour, sexual assault, no support for people with disabilities.
Yep that would be great!

Sounds like you are ahead of the curve there !

People shop in the shop and buy coffee etc

A relative of mine left their job in the nhs. The bus pass they were promised for the park and ride never materialised. The driver refused to let her on the bus without a staff pass even though she offered to pay. This resulted in her having to walk 2 miles from her car to get to work. Due to there being no spaces reserved for staff at the hospital car park, plus the hours she worked meant the car park was already full, she quit.

parking, imo, should never be free.

Really? Are you just not a fan of disabled, seriously unwell, elderly and vulnerable people? Or do you just think they're all too rich as it is already?

But those are optional extras - and there's nothing stopping you from taking your own water bottle/flask, chocolate bar, magazine in with you, or doing without.

It's a million miles away from telling an elderly wheelchair user struggling with cancer and attending frequent appointments that they must pay dearly for their 'luxury' of driving/being driven there, rather than taking the bus that may not be practical for any number of reasons, if it even exists at all.

I think it's so nasty how so many hospitals charge very high prices for parking, considering how dependent a lot of vulnerable people are on those parking spaces in order to be able to use the hospital - but then, I can only assume that is the reason why they deliberately set such very high prices: specifically because they know that the frequently vulnerable people they exist to serve have no other choice but to pay them.