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Hospitals in England charge staff for parking! |
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#26 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 8,705
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I have to pay to park at work and they can't guarantee you a space either.
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#27 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Pit of Despair
Posts: 50,183
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Quote:
It's not uncommon for employee's in other lines of work to have to pay for parking, essentially any place of work that doesn't have its own car park. But at a hospital or any place of employment that has plenty of onsite car parking it's taking the michael.
Especially hospitals where those car parks were built and paid for with OUR taxes! Nor can I concede that charging patients and visitors to park up is reasonable. I find it immoral and unethical. NHS "free at the point of access".. Yeah, free as long as you don't mind paying £6.50 (or whatever) to attend your appointment, or go over time because so many appointments run late. Arguably, parking charges to go town centre shopping, or parking at a train station or airport are fair game because these are things we choose to do. But we don't choose to get ill or have a car accident. It must be just awful for low income families to have to pay parking fee's to go visit a loved one. As if the distress of having someone close in hospital isn't bad enough already, then they have to spend food and heating money just to go see them. So wrong. The above was our hospital's explanation for why staff cannot park at the hospital. Another reason given is the usual abuse of parking if it were free, which no doubt would happen. There is a P&R facility and a lot of buses in and out of the hospital ground throughout the day and quite late into the night, but not everybody who is ill wants to travel on public transport or is, indeed, able to. What the solution is I do not know; I imagine it would be the same even if the car parks were multi-storey, which they never seem to be! |
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#28 |
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 1,340
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It's not at all uncommon for employees to have to pay to park at their place of work.
Having free parking at hospitals where there is limited spaces is an absolute nightmare, as invariably a bunch of complete arseholes will take advantage and take up spaces needed by actual patients. I would much rather pay to park at hospital appointments knowing I will get a space rather than having to show up 30 minutes early, circle round a carpark along with 20 other people in the vain hope of getting a space before having to pay to park on the street and hope I'm back before the 1 hour restriction is up. |
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#29 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 10,274
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The cars may have been crap in the seventies and eighties but at least you could park them without being penalised and preyed upon.
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#30 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 62
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Quote:
You think it's ok for nurses to pay for parking so they can do their job, then?
What planet are you on? And why are nurses so special. They do a wonderful job, just like millions of other people. What a bizarre thought that we should subsidise everyone to go to work. |
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#31 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Pit of Despair
Posts: 50,183
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Quote:
It's not at all uncommon for employees to have to pay to park at their place of work.
Having free parking at hospitals where there is limited spaces is an absolute nightmare, as invariably a bunch of complete arseholes will take advantage and take up spaces needed by actual patients. I would much rather pay to park at hospital appointments knowing I will get a space rather than having to show up 30 minutes early, circle round a carpark along with 20 other people in the vain hope of getting a space before having to pay to park on the street and hope I'm back before the 1 hour restriction is up. No such luck! Average wait for a space at our hospital when I take Jr for appointments - 1 hour, and that's paid parking.ETA: OF course, it'd be even worse if it were free parking - all the local residents would park there
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#32 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Buckingham
Posts: 28,537
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I have never paid to park at work, not even to park my motorbike on the railway station platform when I used to commute.
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#33 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 22,335
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It's £3 a day to park where I work, if you can get a space in the staff car-park. Otherwise you have to use the general visitors car-park which is £1 per hour.
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#34 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 8,749
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Quote:
My partner works in a large teaching hospital, he has to use a (not free) staff park and ride as staff are not allowed to park on site. There are several thousand staff, if they all parked there, there would be no where for patients to park.
I also work for the NHS, but in several smaller community clinics and in some of them I have to pay to park locally as the site has minimal parking, although if this isn't my main place of work I can claim it back but only the very cheapest one which is usually a bit of a walk (or the cities park and ride scheme). What is the alternative? Staff taking up all the patient parking spaces? Most jobs in my experience don't pay for their staff's parking if there isn't a dedicated staff carpark. For this reason, a lot of staff rely on their own transport, rather than public transport to get to and from work. Where I live in Edinburgh, vast numbers of staff live many many miles away from the main hospitals because Edinburgh is such an expensive place to live. Adding the extra traveling time and cost of fares for staff who have to live so far away, means that they end up paying a very high price for the privilege of going to work. There are fewer and fewer smaller hospitals these days, so inevitably more and more staff end up working in these large teaching hospitals but there is never any provision made for those who have an arduous and expensive journey to get there. |
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#35 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Pit of Despair
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I think the issue which arises when new hospitals are built - as many teaching centres are - is that they are built in very inaccessible places... often on the outskirts of cities. This often means that staff have lengthy and difficult journeys to get to and from work when they are working shifts which start and finish at unsocial times.
For this reason, a lot of staff rely on their own transport, rather than public transport to get to and from work. Where I live in Edinburgh, vast numbers of staff live many many miles away from the main hospitals because Edinburgh is such an expensive place to live. Adding the extra traveling time and cost of fares for staff who have to live so far away, means that they end up paying a very high price for the privilege of going to work. There are fewer and fewer smaller hospitals these days, so inevitably more and more staff end up working in these large teaching hospitals but there is never any provision made for those who have an arduous and expensive journey to get there. In the USA they use vertical parking - eg. this ferris wheel parking idea, which is great - we really need to start thinking along these lines! https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/a...ucks.html?_r=0 |
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#36 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: London
Posts: 247
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If you want to park in a carpark, pay for it.
Police officers work in the city and have no free parking and can cost 10 quid an hour. Why should hspt staff be any different to police officers, train/tube drivers, bus frivers, store works /etc/etc, |
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#37 |
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 8,749
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Quote:
I think it's bad planning. They build these places in hard-to-reach areas with lots of land, yet never plan to put in a/several multi-storey car parks, including a staff car park, even though they are in areas with lots of land!
In the USA they use vertical parking - eg. this ferris wheel parking idea, which is great - we really need to start thinking along these lines! https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/a...ucks.html?_r=0 I heard that at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, they have now started building on what had originally been one of the hospital's car parks... so the hospital gets bigger and has more patients and staff but fewer parking spaces than ever before. |
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#38 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Pit of Despair
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Quote:
Yup!
I heard that at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, they have now started building on what had originally been one of the hospital's car parks... so the hospital gets bigger and has more patients and staff but fewer parking spaces than ever before. |
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#39 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 8,749
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Quote:
If you want to park in a carpark, pay for it.
Police officers work in the city and have no free parking and can cost 10 quid an hour. Why should hspt staff be any different to police officers, train/tube drivers, bus frivers, store works /etc/etc, If, for example, you live 30 miles from the hospital- as many staff do - and have to rely on trains or buses to get you to work for a 7am start.... it makes for a very long day. Many staff work 12.5 hour shifts, which means a late finish.... and then the 30 mile journey back home again on public transport... only to do it all again for the next 2 mornings. That's the sort of thing that leads to burnout, high rates of staff sickness and high staff turnover - hardly conducive to an ideal working environment.
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#40 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 2,333
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I do not object to nurses or any other hospital staff having to pay for parking when it is solely used for transport to work and back (barring public transport timing issues) but I do think it is less fair if the person is expected to use their cars for work purposes, for example district nurses
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#41 |
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Whimberry picking on t'hill
Posts: 3,589
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Hospital doctors are indeed covered by NHS Indemnity - but they are strongly advised to buy their own medico-legal indemnity. Because NHS indemnity strictly speaking provides cover for the hospital, so the hospital accepts responsibility for anything that its medical staff does in its name.
However... the NHS Indemnity lawyers' primary responsibility is to the hospital not the doctor. If a hospital doctor finds himself before the GMC for whatever reason, or if there is press attention, then the NHS/hospital doesn't have any responsibility to assist the doctor. They are also not covered by NHS indemnity for things to do outwith the NHS - this includes Good Samaritan acts. |
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#42 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 8,749
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Quote:
I do not object to nurses or any other hospital staff having to pay for parking when it is solely used for transport to work and back (barring public transport timing issues) but I do think it is less fair if the person is expected to use their cars for work purposes, for example district nurses
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#43 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 881
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Quote:
Of course. They should pay for their parking, their car, their petrol, their meals etc.
What planet are you on? And why are nurses so special. They do a wonderful job, just like millions of other people. What a bizarre thought that we should subsidise everyone to go to work. To put it mildly, I would be a tad upset to discover that the doctor or nurse who was supposed to be taking care of me or a loved one was instead crusing the hospital car park or nearby streets trying desperately to find a parking space! I recognise that on site car parking cannot physically be provided for everyone but it really should not be beyond the wit of hospital administrators to figure out some system whereby dedicated car parking space can be made available to key medical personnel for the duration of their shifts and without charge. I really don't think it's asking too much to allow such a concession. |
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#44 |
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 25,439
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MPs get reimbursed for their travel costs, on generous expense allowances.
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#45 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Nailsworth, Gloucestershire
Posts: 10,402
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Quote:
My daughter is a nurse and has a parking permit, renewable yearly
Unless she goes to work early she risks not getting a decent parking space Also she has to pay to renew her registration, every 3 years, where once it was a one off payment for life Who else has to pay to do their job? Renewing their registration isn't cheap, either. |
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#46 |
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: chasing skips
Posts: 388
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Free in Scotland...
..cos we pay for it. |
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#47 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: a whimsical world
Posts: 20,959
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Quote:
wrong! i work in glasgow royal infirmary and i pay £120 per month to park
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#48 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 8,718
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Quote:
I think the issue which arises when new hospitals are built - as many teaching centres are - is that they are built in very inaccessible places... often on the outskirts of cities. This often means that staff have lengthy and difficult journeys to get to and from work when they are working shifts which start and finish at unsocial times.
Quote:
I think that any parking fees incurred during the course of carrying out patient-related business would be claimed back as expenses.
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#49 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 719
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Well once again you can spot the posters who don't work.
Getting all confused by standard work practices and unable to come up with any possible solution to a situation everyone else manages to deal with. |
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#50 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 8,749
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Quote:
Well once again you can spot the posters who don't work.
Getting all confused by standard work practices and unable to come up with any possible solution to a situation everyone else manages to deal with. |
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No such luck! Average wait for a space at our hospital when I take Jr for appointments - 1 hour, and that's paid parking.