To be completely fucked off with hospital parking?

[PooDogMillionaire]

DS had a very bad crack to the head last week, I rushed him to A&E and there was nowhere to park... The only place to pull in had big red signs saying I'd be towed if I parked there, meanwhile DS is almost unconscious, pale with a bleeding head .

I've just arrived at the same hospital for my second attempt at my maternity booking in appointment only to find a 7 car long queue for the very expensive car park. Both appointments have been at 9:30 so I haven't had much time to get up here from school run and have now had to cancel both as nowhere to park.

I'm not sure what the solution is but if be scared to go into labour and not be able to find a space!

What would help would be to reinstate and rebuild more community hospitals so that many more routine appointments and simple procedures can be handled away from the big acute hospital sites.

I have a DC with severe disabilities and I also work for the NHS so I spend hours and hours of my life trying to find somewhere to park at our nearest city centre hospital. Much of what he goes there for could be handled in the community if the facilities and system structure were there.

It's much harder to find a blue badge spot than a regular spot as there are so many elderly people in our area, many of whom are blue badge holders. I can't even get DS out of the car without a blue badge space so we're often very late for appointments.

Mary, the OP was in relation to a booking in appt.

I changed ALL maternity appts to suit me.

The hospital was 1 hour from my work so my boss would have expected me to return to work so I tagged appt onto beginning of the day or end.

I changed a scan for DP day off.

I understand other departments don't work like this but as the OP was about maternity that's what my response was about.

I also wouldn't have cancelled two appts based on parking. You would have learnt the first time round.

We book all sorts of appointments for DS from neuro-disability paediatrics to allergy clinic, ophthalmology, audiology, urology, genetics, EEGs, ECGs, ultrasounds and MRIs...

Certain clinics run on certain days but we are always able to choose the time and date of the appointments we book for him.

This is all NHS, and across a variety of hospitals from Cornwall to London.

Doesn't make a lot of difference to the parking nightmare though!

OrangeNoodle
I have been responsible for planning and moving services out to the community.

We constantly face battles with CCGs and hospital services though because the hospitals don't want to lose the money. Even when the provision of services in the community would be better and cheaper.

OrangeNoodle I have a lot of hospital appointments (every two weeks at the moment) and the date/times are just sent to me. Obviously I can phone and say that I can't make that time, but if the clinic is full, it is full.

I work across 3 NHS sites within the same trust and pay £15 per month for parking. I'm also a blue badge holder. I often can't get a staff space, so have to take a visitor space. Luckily I can park for free in any space with my blue badge, but I do feel very guilty at taking a space from patients. We get ticketed for any parking infraction, although I've now learned every miniscule rule and push them to their limit. The parking attendants know me well! I'm frequently late to my desk, because I can't get a spot - I have to do school run and build time in for contingency, so DS goes to a breakfast club I have to pay for so that I can get to work early enough to sometimes get a space. Thankfully my boss is very supportive. My Dad has an appointment this week. It's at 10am, but I've told him to get a spot he needs to be there for 9am and go and get coffee in the restaurant!

We did have a staff shuttle bus that went between sites (so if it was easier to get to one site over another you could park and ride), but they stopped it a few months ago because they decided it wasn't cost effective time and they couId put the running cost's back into patient care. IIRC it didn't even cover the monthly agency wage we were paying one of the senior execs at the time! Now we have late staff because of unreliable public transport and more cars in the car park. We're supposed to carpool, but last time I checked there's no scheme to match you up with a local member of staff to ride with if you don't know anyone local (my commute is an hour, many don't live that far away).

Our trust is getting a new road build that goes right to the main hospital site to ease congestion on the roads. It's not going to help if there's no parking!!!

At the hospital where DH works, he pays 30 quid a month to park - parking is ample and the price is fine and reasonable. Patients park for free. So it's not a problem at every hospital site.

However, it has been decided that all services will be relocated to the nearest city in 2018 where they are building a whizzy new hospital. Based on this thread I suspect it will cost a bit more to park there (and the area is rough as a badger's arse too).

Had similar to others, DDad died whilst I was circling the car park. Had been given a free pass but that didn't mean a space. Now they have a multi storey. Oddly now I ask to go to this hospital cos the parking is easier. Our other hospital had a huge site and sold it all off for housing and supermarkets.

I know 3little. I work for a community provider and it's a constant negotiation to actually create services that deliver to local need in the community.

We are working better in partnership with the acute hospital now though and starting to come up with some clever solutions, in our area at least...

It's much harder to find a blue badge spot than a regular spot

^This is another of my bear bugs. I have a blue badge for several children. Our children's hospital has 6 blue badge parking spaces outside the hospital doors. You are not allowed to hover or cruise whilst waiting for one. It is a one way system so you can spend a considerable amount of time driving round in circles hoping that by the time you pass by someone will have left. Often there is a circuit of bb holders doing this. The "regular" car park is under ground and if you were even lucky to get a space there quickly you wouldn't have a mission parking an adapted car, or getting someone with limited mobility out of the car.

I was told to get a wheelchair and push it through the barrier to the car park and then you get a new ticket.You then have 15 minutes of free parking. Sometimes doctors are a mine of useful information.

Even disabled drivers have to pay full whack here.

Ps I would have called an ambulance for the child as that level of head injury is an emergency.

Don't take this the wrong way blooming, but why shouldn't blue badge holders pay full rate? I thought it was about getting a priority space, wider and closer to the entrance?

unimaginative IMO anyone with a disabled badge shouldn't have to pay for parking for two reasons: 1- they are 'sick' and are going to need to use the hospital more often. Charging parking becomes a tax on the disabled and 2- most disabled are low income. Very few can work and those that do tend to be in lower income jobs.

I'm not going to start an argument about it but lots of people are sick and on low income and visit hospitals regularly and aren't blue badge holders.

I was just seriously thought it was about priority parking, not a money thing.

Draylon, you seem oddly dismissive when you talk about the 4 pages of "yet more accounts" of parking nightmares. To my mind, it's an appalling way to treat sick and distressed people, but I appreciate that working with these people on a daily basis can desensitize staff.

You say about centralising services. That's certainly one of the problems in my area. For example, the midwives had antenatal clinics around the area. They were well attended, yet the hospital authorities insisted they be brought into the hospital. The midwives fought to keep them and I know our Church offered them free space each week. The authority wouldn't listen, so that's more people joining the ever-increasing queue to find parking at the hospital.
I'm sure there are other clinics that could easily be held outside the hospital, at clinics, in the community - and probably were until this drive towards centralisation.

At my local hospital, certain times of the day are fine. Why not rearrange clinics and appointments to avoid the peak times?

I believe the hospital authorities and councils could do a lot more to help the situatiion than they are doing.

Ideally parking should be at no charge or at cost for those attending the hospital for work, treatment or to visit the sick. It is a problem and needs to be looked at.

Totally agree that a lot of services can be completed outside of the hospital. My father has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and goes to the hospital for dietary help. There is zero reason for this appointment to be held at the hospital.

Oh and his GP just moved from the burbs to the city center. Parking is a problem as its expensive to park before 3pm. I have no clue why a GP would move from a location with free parking to one with no parking.

Just incidentally at lot of hospitals if your child is an impatient you can claim your parking back. It's not widely publicised so it is worth checking.

That is your child is an inpatient not impatient lol

Many hospitals where I live have abolished charges. The car parks are usually packed from 9.30am, til 3, when they empty.

Big hospital in the city still charges. And their disabled parking is a nightmare (blue badges pay), but we can't park in there anymore, anyway, due to size of motability wav (so the disabled carpark is too small for an accessible vehicle? ). They have wheelchair parking. It's not big enough for a wav, so mostly abused by people who don't use a wheelchair.

I mostly walk the dc to local hospital. With dh, we've worked out best places to park at each , normal spaces include. And best times of day to go. One hospital he has to get 3+ hour hospital transport to anyway. Another he has every 6 months, so books later in the day, when the carpark is empty (and being a specialist hospital, they uniquely have wav parking big enough!).

Draylon, if the city you're talking about is the one I think it is, none of the park & ride services go past the hospital and all public transport in it is generally expensive, unreliable and unless you are going in a straight down or up line and don't need to go across at any point, unlikely to take you to where you want to go without spending over an hour to travel 3 miles or so.