To just miss appointments as can’t park?

[Wishitwascooler]

Hospital is full to bursting and you can’t park anywhere for miles around. They won’t talk to me on the phone as I’m in the car even though outside hospital 😂 not sure what to do!

Totally. I used to live in Hyndland and it has got way worse since they introduced parking charges to the residential areas next to the hospital, apparently as part of the council's green initiatives.
There really isn't joined up thinking about this stuff at all is there.

It can be a nightmare i feel for you OP! I recently had an appointment that I waited weeks for, got there in good time but no where to park. I ended up leaving my car and getting a ticket - but as I made the appointment and got what I needed I felt justified. Shouldn't be that way but I had no option. I think arrange a reliable lift or get a cab next time.

It's almost impossible to park at our hospital.

To two sides of the hospital are HUGE lawned areas between the road and the hospital. The hospital must have to pay for these to be landscaped.

I can't understand why they don't just make these into parking bays. They will save the money on gardeners and then get a good income from the patients or visitors parking there.

It's not as if they are concerned about cars being overlooked from the window of a ward, as two sides of the hospital already overlook a car park.

more public transport would be better than more car parking spaces

I think in some of the circumstances described here what I'd do is search one of those parking websites to find the closet possible space. Then if possible walk from there, get the bus from there or get the taxi from there.

Or get help and arrange to be dropped off and picked up?

Or see if they offer hospital transport?

I think the "park closest and ride or stride the rest of the way" is the best option for many people. Not all, but many.

Yes! I don't live rurally at all, in a town centre in fact, but our nearest hospital is Bath. It's 2.5 miles out of the city centre. So, when pregnant, I either drove 40 minutes and hoped for a parking space or walked 15 minutes, got a 25 minute train, walked to the bus station, waited 20 minutes and then got a very slow bus up there, approx 20 more minutes. The hospital is on a narrow congested road which leads nowhere but a small village, so it's not even on a well-served bus route.

The other option was Swindon, which is 4 miles from the station, and to which we have 4 trains a day.

I'm visiting a few hospitals regularly and really feel your pain here OP.

Weirdly one hospital seems to think the solution is to 'cone off' some of the parking spaces for "fracture clinic patients only" and have exacerbated the problem by reducing spaces by 25 whilst they all sit empty!!

I simply moved the cones and parked there. The hospital don't manage the car park and I still paid so they can stick their cones up their proverbials.

How much time did you give yourself?

I used to work 45 miles (1 hour ish traffic dependent) from where my appointments were. So I had to leave between 1.5-2 hrs before to make sure I had time to park.

Next time (if there is another appointment on a work day) can't you tell them the appointment is earlier than it actually is so you can leave earlier? - if you can't argue that you need more time to allow for traffic / parking issues.
Then tell them the clinic was running behind and you didn't get in until whatever time necessary.

I think you get up to 4 hrs to attend mat appointments (don't quote me without checking yourself though as it's been a while since I needed to know myself!)

As long as you call to cancel day's before so someone gets your slot. Just not turning up is a really shitty thing to do. It's people like that who clog uo the system

The only good thing about covid is it means my consultants offer telephone appointments now which is what I always go for. Means I don't have to take a days leave from work and no parking issues
Salford can be bad, preston is horrendous 99% of the time, and Blackpool I never have an issue at. And my appointments are at all 3

I think if you are late, you should just see thr next person and the late person should just have to wait however long it takes

Oh and you know they said they wouldn't speak to you because she were in the car?

What I've done before is use hands free calling to call my DH and ask him to phone the place I'm supposed to be.

It's not ideal, I like to try though.

There is nothing stupid in what I said. The first paragraph is simply the law.

The second is correct in wtf is a 36 week pregnant doubt climbing over a wall.

Feel your frustration.

I attend hospital every 2 weeks. There's 1 small carpark which is full by 8.45am. No trains,trams, no direct bus from my house (need to change 3 times). Cannot afford a taxi there and back every 2 weeks. Localish streets full of hospital staff/uni staff and students. It's totally up to the chance of someone exiting a car parking space.

I have to leave an extra hour early from work than necessary to deal with parking.

It's the most stressful bit of my appointment.

I have a fear of being late.

@Spirallingdownwards find me something in the law that says you can leave an hour before an appointment that is ten minutes away to have reasonable time to park.

Thought not.

The wall was more at risk than I was I think. And the pavement!

find me something in the law that says you can leave an hour before an appointment that is ten minutes away to have reasonable time to park

Clearly if the law says you can have time off for appointments, that includes time to get there. If you are going by car, that means time to park and also be there in plenty of time to find where the appointment is, do any pre-appointment admin on arrival etc.

I don't think the law expects you to be capable of teleportation

Actually we can and do force private bus companies to service particular routes.

If your local travel authority isn't prioritising hospitals, speak to your local councillors.

Oh come on - it’s pretty obvious that if your appointment is at 12, and the hospital is ten minutes away, you aren’t going to be allowed to say you need to leave at 11.

It's not ten minutes away though, is it?

It's ten minutes drive followed by 15 minutes getting parked.

Cardiff and Vale UHB have park and ride for their 2 main sites. It’s free but people still queue for the limited spaces on the hospital sites.

They'll see you if you're late, even by some time. They're not inhunan, just really busy. They'll have brought patients forward into your slot. Car parking is not the clinicians' or reception staff's fault or responsibility, they have similar difficulties YABU

Just read the rest of your posts, genuinely you did well, I mean it. Much better than not turning up 👏👏 Hope you're all right after all that?

OP, the unreasonable one here is your employer - it's absolutely OK to say 'traffic and parking mean I need to leave at 11 for a 12pm appointment'.

If they refuse, and you subsequently miss your appointment they would have prevented you attending an appointment while they are legally bound to accommodate you attending.

Have you spoken to work about it, or just assume they'd say no (not a criticism, just absolutely something my husband would do - assume the answer would be no so not bother asking).

I remember my manager telling me that you get an hour off per appointment. They admitted that it obviously wasn't possible to get somewhere, be seen and get back within an hour though.