No plans to force patients to cough up for car parking at Tamworth's Sir Robert Peel Hospital
NURSES and doctors working at the Sir Robert Peel Hospital are to have to pay to park at the site – but hospital chiefs insist there are no plans to make patients or visitors pay.
From July 1, all employees of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will have to pay for a parking permit.
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Sir Robert Peel Hospital.
Charges will be on a sliding scale and will vary from £5 a month for community-based midwives to £226 per year for the highest earners.
Over the last few years, parking charges for all who visit the site have been considered, but have never yet been implemented – with the Trust now saying that under their tenancy agreement with the site owners South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust, they are not in a position to make the public pay to park at the Mile Oak site.
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The staff charges are being brought in to cover parking across all the Trust sites, which include the Samuel Johnson Hospital in Lichfield and Queens Hospital in Burton-on-Trent.
Patients and visitors to both Lichfield and Burton-on-Trent currently have to pay to park – meaning Robert Peel's Mile Oak site is the only one available for parking free of charge.
Geoff Neild, Head of Facilities, said: "The introduction of parking charges at Sir Robert Peel, Tamworth on 1st July applies only to employees of Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
"We did notify staff members earlier this year that we intended to introduce charges at the community hospitals in Tamworth and Lichfield.
"This brings staff employed across all three sites in line with Trust terms and conditions.
"The staff parking permit covers parking across our sites which makes it easier for staff who have to work in the three hospitals.
"We operate a salary sacrifice scheme for car parking which enables staff to have the car parking charge deducted from their gross salary, thus having the effect of reducing the amount of National Insurance and income tax paid. This helps to bring down the cost of the parking charge.
"With regard to public parking, we are not in a position under the current terms of our tenancy agreement with the site landlord to introduce charges.
"In the future, if we are in a position to bring Sir Robert Peel in line with our sites at Burton and Lichfield, we will ensure the public are given ample notice and are made fully aware of the concessionary packages available", he added.
Comments
by Abominate
Saturday, June 30 2012, 1:38AM
“One way around it would be to organise, every staff member to refuse to pay (they cannot make deductions from your salary without your permission- or a court order) and since this would be a civil matter, the fees, fines call them what you will would have to be pursued through the civil courts, at great expense and with the risk of failure.
Even then, if the court ordered payment, one could simply refuse and civil proceedings would once again have to be pursued. I am sure have all heard stories of traders (rogue type, usually) who ignore court orders to repay money or compensate poorly treated customers, yet ignore them at will.
Now, one of the major flaws in my argument would be getting everybody to stick together; a small minority capitulating could be a severe blow to such a tactic.
I also wonder, if they are to deduct these fees at source, what happens if one doesn't use the parking facilities regularly; perhaps only driving to work in bad weather? Will it be a fixed fee, use the parking or not? Or will they pay a 'parking executive' to administer the scheme?”
by weskiwi
Thursday, June 28 2012, 6:29PM
“One wonders just how life existed before this time of executive positions being strewn around like confetti. I remember a proposal some time ago about private industry and commerce being forced to charge their workforce for parking.
Nearlly every day there is some report or other where some jumped up beaurocrat is laying down the law for everyone else but not for them. No one visitor, or staff should have to pay for parking, it is a total disgrace, for which the general populace are supposed take it without a murmur; and even if there was a protest, these people are so disengaged with reality, that they would simply ignore the protest.
Of course it will be the thin end of the wedge, these things always start off in this manner, before gathering pace.
How nice of whomsoever is responsible for this, and other hospitals, to say that they are going to make it easier, by deducting the sum from the salaries???? That'll larn yer to even think about way of getting rounf the parking fine, and fine, not charge is what it is.
The average person whether in work, or retired, is being hit by one whammy after another, being taxed to death in the main, by people with high salaries but without having a proper job. Should any of these excuses for humanity reply that they also will have to pay the fine, my answer would be that I did not believe a word, or, they will be claiming it on their expense account.
the country is in an awful mess, and most of the mess is being orchestrated in the main, by people that would not normally hold down many of the jobs that the ordinary people that they are hitting.”
by OscarOneThree
Thursday, June 28 2012, 3:50PM
“A disgrace, as is the cost of parking in most of the hospitals in the region. Can we not afford to allow people who are parked at work to get away without paying for the privilege?
What a poor country we are becoming. By the very nature of hospitals, being a place for the ill and dying, I would have thought the last thing that anyone would want to do is increase the stress on either patients, visitors, or staff, by making them pay to enter the grounds!
I and many others are getting heartily sick of the way things are being run. Not only are we being charged for an increasing amount of services, but those costs are continually being increased. It seems the working man, and woman, is being hit again. I wonder whether the Managers, who are on vast salaries, will be asked to pay their share?”
by Abominate
Thursday, June 28 2012, 5:13AM
“This is disgusting. People go to work to earn money, not to pay for their right to do so.
Make no mistake, despite the rhetoric, soon patients will pay; and I also see, with the privatisation of the NHS (which the government deny) it will not be long before ambulances from another area will also have to pay to drop off patients.
I discussed this subject with a colleague, whose opinion was 'doctors can afford it' and 'I've yet to see a poor nurse'; but I argue it is wrong in principle, and if we accept the principle, soon we will all pay to park at our workplace; soon this 'pay to work' principle will apply in other areas. And I also argued this is a divisive act, pitting one group of workers against another; 'divide and conquer' and should and must be resisted by us all.”