To think hospital parking should be for staff and patients only?

[NoHolidaysforyou]

I'm not sure if I am being unreasonable but our local hospital seems to never have parking available during appointment times (even with charges). When I was pregnant I remember whole families going in (aunts and uncles included) to see an ultrasound... Surely visitors are taking necessary limited parking spaces from patients and staff? So... AIBU to think hospital parking should be for staff and patients only? Visitors (unless they have a blue badge) could probably take public transport or walk a bit to get to the hospital. I don't think it's fair to stress patients or direct partners or parents of patients trying to get the patient to see a doctor.

I think a lot of you have brilliant solutions (admittedly much better than mine) either way hopefully we can all agree that finding parking can be an issue and needs addressing?

I'm hoping we can all have a civil discussion (maybe I'm asking a lot from AIBU) and try to come to solutions rather than taking the easy path of saying it can't be helped. I will not be responding to anyone that resorts to personal attacks. It's a discussion, so there is no need for that.

Visitors (unless they have a blue badge) could probably take public transport or walk a bit to get to the hospital

What public transport?

And no one unless they have a death wish would walk on the roads around us.

Unlit single track roads which have a 30mph speed limit that is routinely ignored and if you spot a car coming you have to fling yourself up the embankment because there is no space for car and pedestrian.

I am glad there is parking at hospitals. Dp who is very ill is routinely told to go to one of 3 hospitals.
One being out local hospital (6 miles away)
One being the cancer hospital (20 miles away)
And one being another cancer hospital (about 70 miles away)

A lot of the time I am carrying stuff for Dp which would be difficult and cumbersome to take on public transport because the nhs doesn’t provide everything

YABU - And ridiculous.
How could you even police it??

I agree that abolishing fixed visiting hours would go a long way to helping the issue. Most people's visitors won't stay all day - they'll pop in for an hour when convenient. Fixed hours often mean that people can't visit at all due to their working hours, childcare commitments, etc.

These huge centralised hospitals with the only A&E for miles around are another big part of the problem. In my NHS area we used to have 4 hospitals with A&Es and maternity units. Now we have two. Those two hospitals have not expanded their car parks to accommodate all those extra people!

YABVU, naive and ridiculous and thankfully have no experience of being chronically ill or you'd see just how stupid your suggestion is.

I think we need to accept the limit of centralising services at big sites. It can be cheaper and more efficient but the infrastructure often doesnt cope with the increase in size.

It's not just parking but things like the canteen not being able to cope with everyone needing to eat lunch or lack of staff toilets or tea room space or not enough seats in the waiting room where loads of different clinics are running.

I take my fully able daughter to hospital once every 6 months for hearing checks (she is deaf). Under your system we'd get a parking space. We actually don't need one and can happily walk the 20 mins at 10am on a weekday morning from the closest non-hospital car park.

When my mum had leukaemia and was in the same hospital for 3 months and one of us popped in every day to see her - often being there until late in the night if she was particularly unwell or had some specific treatment we'd have had to walk back across badly lit back-streets to get to our car?

You have over-simplidied the issue and the answer to the point where your solution is non-sensical. Staff need to park. Patients often don't need to park as they are too ill to drive themselves in. Those coming in for outpatient appointments are often physically able. Many visitors are elderly or visiting people with critical conditions and they do need to park. What we need is better parking provision so everyone who needs to can park not a fight over who is least able to cope with walking in from a satellite location!

@Juneau, the problem is the residents would complain about the traffic increase

But making it impossible for people who need to park is not the solution! When sending out letters to patients needing regular outpatient appointments the hospital should encourage anyone who can park elsewhere or use public transport to do so, listing the closest car parks and relevant bus services, but there are many situations (some of them articulated in this thread), where people need parking at the hospital. Surely with all this centralisation it makes sense to provide what should be sufficient for the hospital's normal day-to-day parking requirements. If they can't accommodate parking then they shouldn't bloody well centralise the services so that people from a 30-mile (or more) radius are forced to use that one hospital.

YABVU

A close relative is receiving radio and chemo at the royal marsden. He has been issue with a priority parking badge so he can always park in a designated area.
Everyone else can park elsewhere if space is available or wait for a space to become free.

My local hospitals a nightmare for parking but I have noticed tha there is a regular flow on people coming and going so you just have to wait but spaces do become free. Very few people are parked for long periods so you just st need a bit of patience.

As an outpatient, you could have taken public transport.

Getting a space at my local hospital as an outpatient is a nightmare, but I drive because there is no public transport where I live. It is 10 miles to the nearest bus, which runs every 1.5 hours. Then another 20 mins walk to get another bus. On the way home I would literally have to climb a mountain. How can anyone who is sick enough to need to go to hospital do that? If I drive it takes 15 minutes and I allow half an hour to get a space, which is usually enough. I avoid appointments at the busiest times. To use park and ride I'd have to drive an extra 15 mins in the wrong direction and get a bus back.

If I go to a bigger hospital in or across town I do park and ride because I'm not well enough to drive an hour plus each way, but if I'm going there the park and ride is on the way.

My mum is rural too... only 30 miles from London but there are only 3 buses a week from her village and she'd have to get more than one, probably at least 3 depending which hospital. What if the buses are Monday, Tuesday and Friday and the clinic she needs runs on a Wednesday?

Hospitals need to find a way to have sufficient parking. For example my local hospital has expanded and the new building has plenty of underground parking.

Stop blaming the patients and visitors!

When i was having radiotherapy, 5 days a week for 5 weeks i drove for hust iver an hour to get to the hospital. Public transport would have never worked - it would take 3 or 4 buses and a long walk.
I parked outside the hospital and walked in, about half a mile each way because I could not afford the parking charge. By week 4 I was virtually on my knees trying to walk back to the car to drive home again.

Not adding much to this conversation, apart from to say there is no solution other than a park and ride scheme which would have been fantastic for me, assuming the cost was reasonable.

Do any hospitals operate a park and ride scheme? My "local" hospital (20 miles away) has additional parking off-site, but it's a good half a mile away, and it's quite a hill to get back to the car. That's fine for me, I'm able bodied and fit, but it is not an option for a lot of people. I'd happily use a park and ride scheme on the edge of town and catch a shuttle bus in, as long as the cost wasn't daylight robbery and the shuttles ran reliably and frequently (every 15 mins or so).

parking & costs for parking is a very sore point for my family & me particularly.
OK travel into hospital can be long distance & transport in rural areas is poor to non existent. Mental health patients need visitors - in our area patients have been sent long distances away - I mean over 50 miles way outside areas. Out patients can include: cancer patients requiring daily treatment (chemo & radiotherapy), dialysis, orthopaedic, heart, blood issues etc etc, & the family are needed to take them there.
It is impossible to look at someone & define whether they are a visitor or someone undergoing complex treatment or who have a hidden disability. or who in fact work at the hospital - Our local hospital has staff car park but even though the staff pay there isn't enough in that area so they park in main area or they travel in on local (mostly v good except in rural areas surrounding this large city! clue!!!) public transport (ie some staff can/do use public transport as it can be easier)
Visitors to a & e because they can come in at antisocial(ie no public transport at that time) times & they require other family member to drive them in which may mean whole family has to come.
etc etc etc
worst thing is this: imagine you go in with someone as advised by gp for test in a & e - the prospective patient is the driver (no other transport hospital is 20 miles away) they are taken in as emergency (which they did not expect) & than have to stay in - as the car parks within the hospital are privately run … they expect the family to be able to remove the car

*@user2928362 *
Why should staff have any more right to park than visitors. In any other sector where parking is limited staff will be the first people told to use public transport or park elsewhere.

With all due respect, without staff there really isn't any point patients turning up never mind the visitors.

Most hospitals are in residential areas with limited/non existent parking outside of hospital grounds.

Parking within the hospital is very limited and as staff we understand more than most the genuine issue around available parking spaces.

A lot of hospitals were built a long time before cars were considered a necessity so were not a priority on building plans.

Public transport doesn't always run with suitable times for shifts. Clinical staff are required 24 hours a day 7 days a week did you know?

There is no money in the pot for trusts to spend upgrading parking when they are fighting to keep patient services.

As a nurse working variable shifts beginning and finishing work in the dark and usually walking by yourself back to your car is not fun even to car parks.

There is no easy answer, though blaming other groups because they fall outside your own group just shows your entitlement.

Coming forward with a solution is a much better way.

Welcome to Cornwall! We have one main hospital for the entire County (even better during tourist season).

The car parking is not enough and there is not enough parking for staff (staff have to apply for parking permits they pay for and have to meet strict criteria to get them).

It is not the sort of place that you could get to easily on usual public transport, mostly because you have people who live a good hour away using the same hospital (ignoring those who have to fly in from the Scillies).

We do however have a park and ride in Truro (mostly for the amount of commuting traffic - with parking on 2 of the 3 major routes in). The park and ride is cheaper than the hospital parking and both stops at the hospital and has specific buses that just run between the park and ride and the hospital.

There was a problem with the opening hours, as it did not open early enough for the early shift and the buses stopped to early for the nurses after handover in the evening, but they extended them to make sure the staff could use it.
It now works well, if people plan it right to be able to use it and are up to being able to use it. I can imagine it would not work in places with heavily congested roads that would slow down commuting, but it does work and I would use it (£1-£2 for as long as you like compared to the high parking charges at the hospital).

@fernaniethey certainly do this. Massive hospital with free parking is near to a local town with limited paid for parking. There is a bus link to the town that stops at the hospital and takes 10 minutes,..,guess how hard it is to get a space there during the day?

@Juneau, I agree, I think centralisation has gone too far and when centralising services at sites they need to take a proper look at whether the actual site is fit for purpose and not just the clinical side.

The main hospital in my city is at least 2 bus rides for most users, then after getting off the bus, due to the size off the site a 15-20 minute walk to get to the hospital building required. The hospital site is one of the biggest crime hotspots in the city, muggings, assaults, bag snatches, there are drug users hanging around in the grounds, the site is poorly lit with many dark areas, car parking is poor even for blue badge users. There is no way on earth I would use public transport to get there, whenever I can I always use the hospital in the nearest town in the next county as the car parking & access is so much better. It is wrong that you have to choose a hospital not for its treatments & quality of care but for how accessible the hospital is.

This is why we need to nationalise public transport, so it's run according to need not profit. It's ridiculous that some hospitals are so poorly served.

NHS STAFF HAVE TO PAY TO PARK AT HOSPITALS??????

Good bloody grief. Seriously? That’s shocking.

And yeah YBU. It’s not an easy situation but you can’t just say “sorry there’s no visitor parking here, get the bus to see your sick / dying relative / child / friend”
It’s frustrating I agree, but as pp said, outpatient appointments could be classified as non priority for parking too.

I agree, one advantage of a nationalised public transport system would be that a large employer such as a hospital could potentially lobby for bus routes that would help staff and patients.

You obviously aren't familiar with how long it takes mobility-impaired people to actually GET a blue badge. The lag between onset of symptoms and diagnosis is exactly when hospital parking is most needed.

@Grumpos

That's if you qualify for a parking space to begin with, there are often waiting lists or strict criteria for staff parking spaces.

Grumpis £180 per month at the last one I looked into (Lister Hospital in Stevenage, so not central London or anything). Central London hospitals you are generally just not allowed a permit as a staff member (plenty do not even have staff car parks), and you are expected to take multiple night buses when you finish at 2am and are due back in at 8am.