Fighting for free parking for NHS staff

England is the only country in the UK where NHS staff have to pay for parking at hospitals. Outraged consumer rights champion SCOTT DIXON says it’s time for a major change.

Hospital parking charges are nothing short of an insidious stealth tax on all Key Workers and ought to be scrapped. It is a regressive tax which impacts on low paid workers hardest.

I believe that nobody should have to pay to visit or work in a hospital, least of all Key Workers.

A typical NHS staff worker in England pays around £1,000 a year to park at work, with some exhausted staff reportedly taking on extra shifts to cover the costs.

The Coronavirus pandemic was a game-changer. Hospital parking became free for NHS staff, and local authorities and private providers also offered free parking to health and social care staff.

But that relief was short-lived and charges were reinstated in England in April 2022.

The UK Government only governs England when it comes to parking charges and insists it is right to end free parking for NHS workers, saying it was a time-limited measure during the pandemic and that it brings in funds for the NHS.

It cited back in March 2017 that abolishing charges would result in an estimated £200m per year being taken from clinical care budgets to make up the shortfall.

But this policy is completely at odds with other nations in the UK.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have used their devolved powers to abolish parking charges.

The Welsh Assembly was the first to do so and parking became free at all Welsh hospitals by the end of 2018.

A spokesman for the Welsh Government said at the time: “Free parking provides a fairer and more consistent approach to parking policy.”

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf announced in August 2021 that hospital charges would end permanently in Scotland.

He said:

“We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our NHS workforce for their heroic efforts throughout the pandemic and this will ensure that, along with patients and visitors using our hospitals, they will not face the prospect of parking charges returning.”

In Northern Ireland, Stormont Assembly member Aisling Reilly MLA progressed a Bill which was given Royal Assent in May 2022.

She said: “The ethos of the National Health Service is that healthcare is free at the point of delivery, based on need and not on the ability to pay, yet, at the very first point of access, staff, patients and their loved ones are faced with a financial barrier.”

A two-year transition period was agreed and all parking charges will be scrapped in 2024.

This leaves England as the only nation in the UK that still has parking charges for NHS staff.

NHS England Estates data reports that in 2018/19, £86.2m was paid in parking charges by NHS staff.

Many NHS staff continue to oppose this but online petitions by The Doctors’ Association, Every Doctor, Nursing Notes and Keep our NHS Public to make car parking permanently free for all NHS workers were rejected by the UK Government.

Another petition set up on www.change.org by a GP in March 2020 calling for NHS staff parking charges to be scrapped attracted over 1.1m signatures, yet it also didn’t make a difference.

A Government spokesman responded to the petitions by saying: “Free hospital parking for NHS staff was a time-limited measure during the pandemic. It is right to end this now as we learn to live with the virus. Free parking for staff working overnight remains.”

On top of these charges, NHS staff also say they are being unfairly penalised by private parking operators, who are notoriously unregulated. Staff are unaware that ‘penalty notices’ are simply invoices for an alleged breach of contract for parking on private land and not a fine.

Many Key Workers are on minimum wage, work long and unpredictable shifts and are forced to commute long distances because they cannot afford to live close to their place of work.

The NHS is facing a recruitment crisis and abolishing car parking charges for staff would go some way in easing this.

I would encourage NHS staff to lobby their local councillors and MPs.

It is unacceptable that people who are working to save lives and care for the sick must pay to park their car at work and something must be done soon.

Find out more about Scott’s work resolving complaints here.