Sad consequence of rising costs

That's not unique to the UK, in fact I dare say it happens in most jurisdictions. The parking here is part of and owned by the hospital but like yours is subcontracted to a third-party to run. Doing it that way is full of advantage to the hospital:

- although the hospital owns the parking (it's part of the hospital) they don't have to get involved in day to day running, charging parking fees, problems with users etc. They just take a periodic stipend from the third party.

- if you don't like the parking fees .... talk to the third party, not the hospital.

- problems at the automatic checkout .... talk to the third party

- insufficient parking to handle the volume of patients? ... talk to the third party.

- got charged a $50 parking fine (by the third-party) for parking in a non-approved (but non-blocking) spot because your appointment time had gone by and there were no spaces left? Nothing to do with the hospital ....... talk to the third party.

- Don't think the third party has any legal legitimacy to level fines anyway? .... talk to the third party.

Why would any hospital do it any other way?

Because they're supposed to care?

In my direct and recent experience:

- the doctors care about the patients.

-the nurses and nurses' aides care about the patients, and go WAY above and beyond to help them.

-the volunteers care about the patients and visitors.

-the receptionists and clerks care about the patients and visitors.

-the administrators and accountants care -ONLY ABOUT MAKING / GETTING MONEY

It may well be different in the UK but hospitals here are (forced by politicians to) run as a business as well as providing health care. Not that I think that excuses the parking issues.

And +1 to Jeff's comment

(note the edited quoting )

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 29/06/2022 01:33:39

ON the other hand, if they did not charge for hospital parking these days, the car park would be chock full of local businesses' employees enjoying free all-day parking and many hospital visitors would miss out on a park at all.

Referring to the NHS and the UK, if the management structure was pruned to an effective level and waste management implemented, they wouldn't have to resort to parking charges, or shopping franchises.

Mr. Hopper, I think you've been taken in by the incompetent ramblings of administrators Jeff Dayman talks about. I have seen them put up this argument, which, on the surface appears logical.

EXCEPT - even I could set up a system which ties parking to appointments. I know admin people are notoriously poor at admin, but they could, if they wish, have this kind of system.

Please lets not hear the NHS is short of cash and is in dire need of the parking cash! There's enough grief in going to hospital without stress created because parking may overrun or you do not have change.

Yes you and I could set up a system to tie parking to appointments but that doesn't mean government bureaucrats could! And still does not help visitors coming in to see family and friends inside. I can't think how I would set up a system to cater for them, especially oldies and others not very internet savvy for online bookings etc.

The real scalpers though are at the airports. What used to be government-owned providing a service to taxpayers has now become a merciless commercial monopoly preying on a captive audience with no choice. Prices make hospital parking seem benign.

The the NHS do not resort to parking charges. They have shed the cost of running the car parks and in our many cases building new multi story car parks. I would rather see money being spent on patients rather than on car parking costs. Our Lab has it's own car parking but the barrier system and charging which is supplied and supported by an external company costs us around £70,000 a year. That's just for the software and the barriers.

A large hospital car park costs must run into millions, which is a lot of nurses.

As for shopping franchises I dont see what the problem is. All the costs of maintaining and refurbishing the concorses is on the franchise and shop space is rented out to individual retailers so the hospital, it's staff and the visitors get the benifit of the facillities with no burdon on the NHS.

regards Martin

Sounds like Daily Mail thinking to me! Strong opinion, light on facts. But I expect RMA has the evidence to hand.

I'd just remark that simple solutions to complex problems are usually wrong. If fixing the NHS were as easy as pruning management and reducing waste, it would have been done years ago. Plenty of bright-eyed bushy-tailed politicians have taken charge of the NHS with similar notions and departed without achieving much: they don't last long! Problem is it's dead easy to generalise and much, much harder to come up with specific changes.

Thirty years ago, the government of the day introduced internal markets into the NHS. The idea was to unleash the forces that drive business efficiency in commerce. Unfortunately the NHS isn't a commercial entity, so setting up an internal market just introduced a mass of new admin requirements with little in return. Difficult to prove because no accounts were kept of internal market costs, itself a bad business failure, but it certainly didn't stop costs rising as before. Trouble with the idea is artificial competition created by politicians who never admit failure is nowhere near as effective as a real market.

We don't need simple answers. What's needed is strong accountability: quick enquiries, recommendations that are implemented, and no cover ups. NHS managers should be held to account by Ministers, Ministers should be held to account by the Cabinet, Cabinet should be held to account by their Party, the Party by Parliament, and MP's by the Electorate. The electorate are the weak link in the chain. Unfortunately too many vote uncritically on party principles and would rather be represented by a divisive incompetent wearing the right tie than an able performer from the other team, even temporarily.

My recipe for a better world: delivery should be run on engineering principles and politics of all flavours treated with suspicion. Too much emotion, prejudice, belief, opinion and self-interest in politics for comfort, We all know chaps convinced they should be running the country who can't be trusted to post a letter...

Dave

If you don't like hospital parking charges, come to Wales, we've had free hospital parking since 2018. The amount of space available varies from hospital to hospital, but you can usually find an empty slot.

The best 'hospital parking' story I know of was in an English hospital. They had a big rebuilding program, and put a helicopter landing pad on the roof of the new A&E, thereby freeing up a lot of ground-level space for parking. By the time they'd finished the rebuild, they'd bought a new helicopter. The new one was too heavy for the rooftop-pad (which had been designed without any weight allowance for a replacement copter), so they had to take the parking spaces back for a ground-level landing-pad.

As far as I'm aware no administrator, architect or building company was ever penalised for not allowing any slack for possible replacements in the design phase...

Since this topic has drifted into hospital parking charges I will have my say.

Recently I have been an outpatient at a small local hospital, one of a privately owned chain, that provides non-urgent operations for the NHS. It is located on an industrial estate and the parking is free. All you have to do is to give your car registration number to the receiptionist. This is totally different to the big Bristol NHS hospitals. It is either a policy of the owners or due to the local county council not charging for their town parking (I suspect it is both).

My understanding that efficiency in the NHS means no empty beds, that is no slack. If so this is, as seen, a recipe for problems.

JA

I am about to buy tickets for the Midlands Exhibition (next job).

Edited By JA on 29/06/2022 12:36:09

Can somebody tell me how to disconnect from this totally out of topic thread please.

Nobody reply please as I've just found how to do it. 

Martin P

Edited By martin perman on 29/06/2022 12:51:55

The problem is people keep posting in it....

It's not only going to be our and related hobbies that are going to be hit.

All manner of leisure activities use expensive kit (though that's usually occasional purchases and long-term use) and venues, meeting-places, etc. distant from many participants' homes. Those voluntary bodies running small museums, non-commercial arts and the like may well see fewer and fewer visitors to help pay for the increasing costs of maintaining the displays, despite the staff being unpaid. Some sports, and most outdoor-pursuits based on geographical features, enforce long trips on many of their participants.

This is before we think of "ordinary" holidays or visiting relatives living far from home.

Though as one of my caving friends, who also makes many round-trips for his other hobby of nature-photography, says though, "Do we want to moan about the fuel cost but carry on with our lives, or save the money by just sitting at home?"

'

More seriously for him and many other self-employed traders are the so-called "congestion charges" in some cities now, making them question the economics of taking on work in those places. They can absorb only so much before passing the fee to customers who can take only so much more and may not understand the concept of overheads. He is a Gas-Safe registered plumber and says he cannot now sensibly quote for major works for private homes, like replacing central-heating boilers; because the materials prices are rising too quickly. He found it hard enough estimating for that work in his own home, where the labour is free!

Do i recall Mr Johnson saying he was going to stop hospital charging for parking or have I dreamed it up ? I do know my hospital as stopped charging blue badge holders for parking.

H

Just seen a flying 🐷

It seems unreasonable to charge the sick who need to attend appointments at a hospital but is it right to charge visitors whose attendance probably has a positive effect on the patient being visited. The flip side is should the hospital spend money that could be spent on patients on a car park and the maintenance and management of it. contracting out parking to commercial concerns just fleeces the patients and visitors. I feel the ideal would be for those who wish to use a car to pay for the convenience of the facility but the facility operated by a not for profit organisation. Free parking is paid for by everyone from taxation and may have some merit if piling some more on our ever increasing burden is acceptable.

Mike

I have to go on a regular basis but I don't mind the parking charge per se (although I wouldn't mind it being a bit lower) if only there were adequate, quickly-accessible parking spaces available once I get into the parking .... having been dealt an entry ticket to get in which will have to be paid on exit (whether or not I actually find somewhere to park).

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 30/06/2022 19:01:41

That's what happens at one of our local NHS hospitals, but not all.