NHS staff hit with massive parking fines

[clairethewitch70]

This is in Wales' biggest hospital.

The Welsh Assembly abolished hospital parking charges, but the UHW is under a contract still. Staff are handing their notices in and one nurse says she will have to sell her house to pay the fines.

There are 6,000 staff but only 1,800 staff parking spaces. It they use a visitor space they get a ticket.

A judge ruled that staff have to pay £128 per ticket issued.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/more-70-doctors-nurses-taken-13338896

This is my local hospital. I am wondering if the Welsh Assembly will step in.

I read about that this morning. Disgusting. These people work hard and to not have even half enough staff parking spaces is crazy. We have a similar situation at our local hospital.

Every single hospital I've worked at has had nowhere close to enough car parking spaces and I've only worked in 2 where there is dedicated staff parking, the rest have to park and pay like visitors or attempt to park in the surrounding streets and therefore piss of residents. It's ludicrous when you consider public transport rarely operate to fit around shift times. It costs me at least £30 a week in taxi fares at the moment because the bus doesn't run at the right times.

Its an example of the total lack of respect for NHS staff that seems so prevalent these days. These staff were paying every month out of their hard bloody earned wages (capped for god knows how many years now), for spaces that they couldn't get! Actually I would argue they were paying for something that didn't exist, there will be far more staff paying into the parking scheme than there are spaces. They were being ripped off!
They arent going to be able to pay the vastly over inflated fines anyway, it's a ridiculous situation.

I can't see that the judge had a choice. The staff knew the rules, they deliberately broke them, then they refused to pay the fines.

You can disagree with the rules. You can be angry with them, but if those are the rules and you break them, you'll get fined. What did they expect?

They took a gamble that they wouldn't have to pay and sadly, they've lost. I can't believe that anyone would be stupid enough to run up fines that would lose them their home

I used to work at this hospital in the late 80's. The problem is they keep building more departments onto car park spaces. More departments = more staff and patients and decreasing car park spaces.

In the 90's a private company built a multi-storey here. That is where to problem lies. The private company get the parking money and are under contract.

I doubt there is a hospital anywhere that has sufficient staff / visitor parking , it's life when you work in the NHS . My dsis , works at a hospital but is not a nurse , it costs her £8 per day to park on site . She could get the subsidised off site park and ride but at the time she leaves in the evening that would mean it would take her about 1.5-2 hours to get home whereas by having her car on site she can be home in 20 minutes .

Car parking is massively hit and miss.

I've been in one hospital where staff car parking was ample, cheap and there were people paid to park for you so you could get off to clinics etc quickly instead of scrambling to find a space. Had the end result of being able to very efficiently fit everyone in instead of having shit parkers taking up double bays. Cost me £9 per month for the privilege.

I've been in another where staff parking was 20 minutes away, cost £65 a month for even the lowest paid workers, and people would get keyed because it wasn't secure.

the majority of people have to pay for parking at work .Used work shifts and earn about 2/3rd of a nurses pay and £9 a day .

As an NHS employee ( that struggles to park daily) I really feel for these people. Our trust has offered the wisdom of arrive in plenty of time for your shift. This is all well and good, but if you have child care to sort and have to travel in to work anyway this could easily add a couple of hours to the day!
I don't condone them parking 'illegally' and not paying parking fines, I can understand why they resorted to parking how they did.
The reality is that often there isn't enough parking spaces, and then when you park on the roads surrounding the site residents don't like it! We cannot win.

I don't necessarily think for nurses it's the cost , more the safety aspect / inconvenience of getting to a car , miles away , when it's dark / wet , after night / late shifts / if you go off sick mid shift etc .

I don't get this at all. These people are inside saving lives and caring for people. There should be free parking without question. Disgusting.

The nurses were already paying for parking I thought - and had quite expensive permits. The problem was that often there weren't any parking spaces left in the staff area, so had to park in another bit of the car park where the passes weren't valid.

The bottom line is do we want our NHS staff to be able to come to work or don't we? Do we want them driving around for an hour looking for parking or do we want them on duty? Do we want them driving all the way home again and waiting for a bus or train because there weren't any spaces or do we want them on duty? These are essential workers hospitals can't run without staff, lets enable them to work instead of penalising them.

Yes Pink I think you are correct. There are 6,000 staff, 1,800 staff parking spaces. Obviously all staff are not on duty the same time, but there is a big shortfall.

I have a parking story about this hospital.

When ds2 was about 15 months, he fell at DP's house and cut his head open on a door, requiring stitches. They phoned me and I drove straight away to A&E. My DF met me out side at drop off and took my car to park. He bought a ticket but unbeknown to me in the panic parked in staff parking. Ended up with a fine even though he paid and displayed. Really unfair. When a child ends up in A&E you just want to park and be with them. Anyway, I successfully fought the fine as DF had paid and displayed - we sent a copy of the ticket and details of DS's attendance. Incidentally the nearest parking spaces to A&E at that time were staff only.

I guess their argument is that they're paying for a permit and the trust aren't providing a service which the staff feel they're paying for.

Where I work it's very similar problems. We pay a monthly fee, there's not enough spaces. I turn up an hour early for a late shift and there's still no parking spaces. There's no on street parking within a 30 min walk. People are constantly late for work because they're so scared of getting a ticket that they'd rather drive round for two hours. Nobody gets disciplined for being late as managers are sympathetic but the trust must be losing out on paying staff wages when they're not at work, plus it could mean being short staffed on the ward.

I've had quite a few tickets and not paid them.

I think they should have to pay the fines, they knew the rules, counted on the fact they wouldn't be enforced and their gamble hasn't paid off.

Many, many, many people work in low paid jobs that don't come with free parking so I don't see why these nurses should be allowed to park for free in the circumstances outlined. At the hospital near me many hospital staff park a couple of miles away and cycle the rest of the way to work. Too many of us use our cars when there are better alternatives which is why there is so much congestion.

Also, why should visitors have to struggle to park when visiting sick or dying relatives?

And as someone who helps at NHS recruitment fairs I can tell you it's a big issue for prospective staff. The first question I nearly always get asked isn't about the preceptorship rotation it's about what staff parking is like.

Seeing as trusts are having a big recruitment crisis and desperate to attract staff you would think they would wake up to this.

Soon we won't be able to afford to travel to work so the staff car parks will be empty. Problem solved.

We have the same problem at our hospital. All staff parking is full by 8am so staff are forced to park in patient bays and then get fined for it.

A member of staff asked a parking attendant where they should park as there were no staff areas free and she was told to go home !!!

WhichJob

You're right lots of love paid jobs don't come with parking and yes we do overly rely on cars.

However this isn't a race to the bottom and in terms of cycling, we have no staff showers in my hospital and no one wants to start work covered in sweat (very hilly city, hospital at top of very large hill so sweat is inevitable). As I said in my previous post public transport is out too for us shift workers on lots of shifts so people are forced to use cars or like me spend a fortune on taxis.
I think people get really pissed off because lots are paying a fortune for a permit that doesn't even guarantee you a space.

Regardless of how difficult it may or may not be (I am an NHS nurse, so I know full well how hard it is), if there are parking rules and you choose to disobey them, then get a fine and choose to ignore that, you can only expect to find yourself in this situation. You simply can't say 'I disagree with the rule so it doesn't apply to me '

Formerly, I'm not saying there aren't ways to make the system work better but I do think the nurses should have to pay the fines.

NHS Trusts should be looking at doing things like providing showers/mini buses to collect staff from the outskirts of the city, sorting out park and ride arrangements etc, incentivising car share schemes/not using the car at all etc, etc.

And employees should be using all the proper channels to make their voices heard on these issues. But until then there is no way I would rack up that amount in fines and expect them not to be enforced, I wouldn't jeopardise my finances like that.

I worked at UHW and also lived there in the staff accommodation for 7 months- which you still have to pay £1.05 a day to park even if you're a resident. I had several tickets during this time even though I'd paid- as others have pointed out there is a serious lack of spaces and also no local roads with long term parking either. A couple of times I parked at the end of rows (very consciously not blocking the car park and with more than enough space for ambulance + traffic to still get through) by the staff accommodation- so ambulances don't go down there anyway and despite paying still got ticketed. A few friends who worked there used to have to arrive on site at least 45 mins before each shift just to search for a space and they'd end up in the same position as me and had to park on the end of car rows. I contested my tickets and in the end didn't have to pay any of them but it's a nightmare. I'm now due to have our child there in October and I've already made plans for husband to drop me off and park the car elsewhere/walk back as I can't stand giving Indigo Parking a penny more.

So the a lack of parking spaces managed for profit by a private company, turn the ability of healthcare professionals to safely get to work against the visitors' rights to visit those sick and dying patients that the HCPs are there to look after.. What fucking nonsense.

Some of the shifts I have worked have started at 6am (but most 07:00-20:00) should I turn up at 5am to make sure I have a parking space and find that the night shift staff are all parked there? Or shall I add the time to cycle to and from my parked car miles away into my 13 hour shift day/night.

It is a very small minority of the staff who have these tickets/fines with which to contend, the staff who consistently parked where they were not supposed to park. The parking rules might suck but you still need to follow them.

I don't think the judge could have made any other ruling.

I do hope the debts are forgiven or set aside for a year then wiped away if they haven't parked illegally again.

There is very good bus service to the hospital and the staff who have trouble parking their cars could very easily travel by bus, even just part of the way (new park and ride scheme has been set up, making it even easier).

I also work in an area where there is nowhere near enough parking for the amount of people who work there. You either get there super early or park far away or pay a large amount for a car park that fills up quickly.

I don't have much sympathy for those crying about tickets after consistently parking illegally and ignoring tickets.