Burnham acts on parking charges

Oct 1 2009 by William Green, The Journal

HEALTH Secretary Andy Burnham yesterday announced a partial scrapping of hospital car parking charges but could not guarantee NHS job losses as spending cuts loom.

Charges for in-patients will be phased out over the next three years with a permit allowing friends and relatives to visit for free – although it will only cover one car at any one time and excludes out-patients.

Hospitals in our region have sparked anger by raising £9,896,502 over the tax years 2006-07 and 2007-08 through parking charges.

The last thing people visiting hospital wanted to worry about was keeping the car parking ticket up to date, the Health Secretary told the conference in Brighton yesterday.

He said: “For families of the sickest patients, the costs can really rack up. It's not right if some people don't get visitors every day because families can't afford the parking fees.”

Macmillan Cancer Support chief executive Ciarán Devane said: “We applaud the Government for recognising the high cost to families visiting relatives in hospitals, but are disappointed that they have ignored the same high cost of parking charges to those cancer patients having treatment as out-patients.

“Hospitals save £6,000 by delivering a six-week course of radiotherapy as an out-patient – money which could, and should, be used to help all cancer patients with the cost of parking.”

Parking for cancer sufferers in Scotland is already free and last month in The Journal Macmillan called for hospitals on this side of the border to follow suit.

The charity launched a campaign urging hospitals to drop what they have branded a “tax on sickness”.