Disabled patients and visitors hit back at University Hospital of North Staffordshire parking charges
DISABLED patients and visitors at Staffordshire's biggest hospital have condemned a decision to make them pay for parking for the first time.
The University Hospital of North Staffordshire will introduce the fees for blue badge holders from April, as part of a number of changes to parking.
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'IT'S RIDICULOUS': Stephen Langham has criticised the decision to make the disabled pay for car parking at the hospital. Inset, Stephen's disabled neighbour June Clark.
While cancer and renal patients will still be exempt, disabled people will be expected to pay the same as other motorists.
A spokesman for the hospital said 27 out of 168 trusts in the UK already charged blue badge holders, and that the fees at the hospital were still relatively low.
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But the plans have attracted widespread criticism.
Stephen Langham drives his disabled neighbour June Clark to appointments at the hospital every month.
The 55-year-old, from Leek, said: "This is the most ridiculous decision I have heard for a long time. It will create so much bad feeling among the public I don't know why they have made it."
Wheelchair-bound Mrs Clark, aged 82, who suffers from diabetes, said: "I am here so often it will cost me a small fortune now. And it's not as if it's somewhere I choose to be and pay for the privilege of being here."
Disability rights campaigner Councillor Terry Crowe, Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, said he would be discussing the plans with his fellow councillors.
Mr Crowe, who needs a wheelchair to get around after contracting polio as a child, said disabled people were being made to feel like a 'drain on society'.
He said: "People with disabilities are losing out everywhere. Benefits are being cut, and now this. When I had my heart attack I had to go to the hospital three or four times a week. If you have to pay £3 a time, that's a lot of money."
The hospital will be raising the minimum parking charge for four hours from £2 to £3 – the first increase in six years. Fees for longer stays will remain the same. The flat £6.11 a month fee for staff parking permits will be replaced with a sliding scale, where workers will be charged 0.5 per cent of their salary.
A hospital spokesman said: "The trust has to balance the needs of patients, visitors and staff. The parking fees at UHNS are still significantly lower than many other trusts nationwide. It is important that we are able to keep parking fees low for patients, visitors and staff. However, we need to ensure the creation and maintenance of parking spaces does not impact on the finances allocated for direct patient care."
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by Basha
Monday, January 28 2013, 11:11PM
“A fair for all would be patients and relative visitors paying £1 for 4 hours. This will give the Hospital Board enough money to maintain the hospital car parks. Yes the blue badge holders and every one who parks in a parking space should pay the same rate. £1 for four hours.
The income that the hospital will get will be more than enough to maintain and build new car parks. The hospital would not have to spend any money from its budget on the car parks. All its budget can then be used on patient care.”
by Basha
Saturday, January 26 2013, 3:33PM
“"The University Hospital of North Staffordshire needs money to maintain the car parks and to build new ones. The Trust Board should therefore tell us how much money they make from the car parking fees for the patients and staff. How much of that money is spent on the maintenance of car parks and what is the profit. They will tell us that the profit we are making is going into patient care. So it proves that patients are paying for the services provided by the hospital. The profit that the hospital has made over the last 5 years from the car parking fees should be used to build new car parks and maintain them.
The UHNS NHS Trust says we need more money to maintain the car parks and built new car parks we the hospital staff will give them this money. But we must have the accounts shown to us of the profit made by the hospital from patients parking in the pay & display car parks of the hospital.
The hospital should also inform us as to how many hospital staff pay for the parking and how many car parking spaces are reserved for the staff to park."
The money that the UHNS NHS TRUST has so far made from parking fees paid by the patients of North Staffordshire have been spent on purchasing Lap Tops computers and iPads for hospital and very little on maintaining or building new car parks.”
by Lancer111
Friday, January 25 2013, 10:07PM
“I agree with having to pay for parking at the Hospital, I am disabled but do not have, nor want, a blue badge. The amount of people that I see using these free parking tickets who set off down the road like an athlete beggars belief. There are a lot of genuine people who need to park close to shops etc. but also too many who abuse the system.”
by Exserviceman
Friday, January 25 2013, 6:54PM
“I don't know about the disabled paying , I find it disgusting that patients who in fact own the hospital have to pay , surely this service should be free like all other NHS services at the point of use.”
by 1957SE
Friday, January 25 2013, 4:58PM
“Thats fine make them pay, but can drivers who dont have disabled badges please leave these spaces free for disabled people”
by atriskNurse
Friday, January 25 2013, 4:51PM
“I don't necessarily disagree with the disabled having to pay, but they need to ensure that they have plenty machines close to where they park so that it is easy for them to pay. Its absolutely no use if the pay machines are miles away and they cant get to them or life is made unnecessarily difficult when attending the hospital. The disabled spots are already a fair walk away from the man building without adding in extra walking time to get to a pay machine.
For those who have to visit the hospital a lot over a week or so I think there are ways to buy longer term tickets which would work out cheaper - ask on your wards/ clinics etc. or ask a parking attendant for help.”
by BucknallMel
Friday, January 25 2013, 2:53PM
“By the way, iagu2, disabled people already do have to pay for most parking, it just wasn't the rule at hospitals because most of us have to go there so often - because we need more medical treatment for our disabling conditions. If you resent that, I hope you get to feel what it is like walking in our shoes.”
by BucknallMel
Friday, January 25 2013, 2:50PM
“As a blue badge holder myself I am perfectly happy to pay for parking, as long as it is close enough to where I need to be (and I don't have to ride a golf buggy to get to my destination). My problems are the people who abuse the system who are perfectly ok to walk, and who take up the very few spaces provided; and the local authority of which Terry Crowe is a part removing more and more of those spaces presumably to drive us elsewhere. I know some posters think disabled people moan and you have it worse than us but I would gladly swap my blue badge for your ability to walk any day!”
by Potter46
Friday, January 25 2013, 2:48PM
“Disabled people have to pay for the blue badge its not a free gift, how would you feel if council issued a parking permit only outside your house, so you have to pay an annual fee for the permit, and on top of that another fee to park there. And what a lot of people forget that disabled people visit the hospital more frequently than anyone else.”
by dusty2011
Friday, January 25 2013, 1:14PM
“I agree we disabled should pay and their are very few parking places for disabled drivers/people. There is a lot of misuse of the blue badge system and I get very annoyed when I see people with a blue badge and they can walk perfectly well. I just wish traffic wardens would enforce the system and book people who abuse it.”