NHS nurse’s determined plea on hospital automobile parking charges – ‘it is kind of blackmail’

More than 70% of health workers are being slapped with hefty car parking bills at hospitals – with one nurse branding it an “extra tax”.

Low-paid NHS workers paid more than £70million in parking charges last year, NHS data showed on Thursday. Martin Jackson, a nurse at Barnsley Hospital, said NHS workers are already “trying to keep our heads above water” as winter pressures hit without “disheartening” parking costs.

The 60-year-old has to stump up £30 a month to park – with consultants or those who can afford more paying around double that. He told the Mirror: “It’s disheartening. You feel devalued because your own company you’re working for has its own private little taxing system.”

He said NHS trusts raise the money to pay for other things, like hospital security, adding: “They say that if they didn’t charge car parking fees, it would take off direct patient care and so it’s sort of a blackmail to get us to agree to pay our £30 a month.”

Martin, who is a respiratory nurse, said: “This time of year, we’re under massive amounts of pressure. There’s a lot of really nasty diseases going around and we look after these patients. And a lot of us pick these diseases up so there’s quite high sickness levels in the NHS from a staff point of view and that leaves us even more short staffed trying to look after the patients we’ve got.

“We’re trying to keep our heads above water financially because of all the pressures with the cost of living but also the workload at work is so demanding. So with all the pressures of working in the NHS, if we didn’t have to pay car parking fees and we didn’t have to deal with what [NHS] trusts do to people, then we’d be in a better place. We’re losing staff because of the way they’re treated in the NHS but also because they don’t believe they should have to park their cars at work.”

Martin recounted how some staff park their cars elsewhere, leaving them to walk far at 10pm at night in “dangerous” areas after a long shift. And he said visitors are sometimes having to pay £10 a day which “adds to the burden” when they are coming to see their ill relatives in hospital.

GMB union has long campaigned for parking at its members’ places of work to be free in England – as it mostly is in Scotland and Wales. Its survey of almost 2,000 GMB members found 72% of those working in hospital settings had to pay to park at work. GMB analysis of NHS data shows staff in the North West paid out the most at almost £15million, followed by the North East and Yorkshire with more than £14.5million, then the Midlands with more than £11million.

Rachel Harrison, GMB National Secretary, said: “NHS workers have had their first above inflation pay rise after almost 15 years of cuts. They’ve suffered rocketing workloads, chronic understaffing and the fallout from a global pandemic.

“Health workers are on their knees – they need help and support. Charging them to park is kicking them while they are down. GMB calls on the Government and NHS employers to do the right thing and scrap staff car parking charges.”