Comment: Visiting the sick now being denied to all but the rich

1:36pm Friday 8th March 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter

Parking at Watford General Hospital is an expensive ordeal I would wish on no one.

Its £4 minimum fee has been a source of anger in the town for years. It is a punitive charge on people who usually have no option but to pay it.

Anger over the charges has translated into political action with Watford Borough Council examining the issue last year.

The result was the council requested the authority in charge of the hospital, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, drop the minimum fee to £2.50.

The trust declined the suggestion, saying it could not make changes to its current contract with the company CP Plus, which runs its car parks.

The issue was recently exacerbated further when the trust announced that it would be scrapping free parking for blue badge holders.

This means the disabled and people with chronic conditions will be hit with the steep charges too. The trust justified the move on the grounds that it makes a loss on its parking.

In the light of this, the Watford Observer requested to see the contract between the trust and CP Plus for car park management under the Freedom of Information Act.

The trust released the contract, but blacked-out all the figures, making it impossible to tell what kind of value it provides for the NHS, patients and taxpayers.

The trust used part of the act relating to commercial interest which states: “Information is exempt if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).”

This contract has very real ramifications for people in Watford and beyond.

I recently spoke to a contact who had a family member at the hospital. She recalled hearing a husband in the bed next to them pleading with his spouse not to visit him every day due to the mounting expense.

However, for now, residents will have to continue paying fees without knowing the details about why they are so high.

All we do know is this contract appears to be benefiting neither trust nor the people visiting its hospitals. Those facts alone make a compelling argument for the details to be made public.

 

So the bridge over the pond is going to be built. In the past I have questioned the need for this trans-aqua walkway, which appears to have been construed by some in the town hall as all outright attack on the plan.

To be frank, I don’t have vociferous feelings either way.

But after all these months I’m no further forward in figuring out the logical reasoning behind the bridge.

I still harbour suspicions that it is a facile idea thrown up by the highly-paid consultants who designed The Parade revamp rather than a facility desperately needed by pedestrians roaming the town centre.

Yet this is all hypothetical. Maybe once it’s built we’ll discover it is an indispensible addition to The Parade that leaves us all wondering how we ever did without it.

Comments(17)

Hornets number 12 fan says...
1:46pm Fri 8 Mar 13

That copy you obtained under the Freedom Of Info Act is a joke! you'd think it was a document that admitted aliens DO exist! The whole paying to park in the Hospital leaves a nasty taste in the mouth as our taxes etc pay for the NHS!
Like everything else in this country now we pay for it again and again! The Local Trust have proven themselves to have the financial interests of patients and their families very low down on their list of priorities!

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crazyfrog says...
2:46pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Its disgusting and unacceptable whoever signed it on the NHS's behalf should be sacked end of !

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Veritas says...
5:04pm Fri 8 Mar 13

some very good points raised.

Also can the WO remind us what the previous chief Filowski said at a Croxley meeting into the rip off charges.

"that patient care would suffer" if parking charges reduced.
Implying money from parking was used to pay for patient care? A blatent lie!!

We need a proper investigation into these rip off charges.

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Wacko Jacko says...
5:10pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Wasn't there something in the Watford Observer last year about councillors taking the hospital to task about the high parking charges and making recommendations for various changes and reductions? The actions of the hospital management in ignoring the wishes of the public and the council by raising charges are in danger of undermining public support for them and their plans for expansion

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MarsLander says...
10:17pm Fri 8 Mar 13

Money money money....

and I thought they worked for us.

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Mohandas says...
9:53am Sat 9 Mar 13

crazyfrog wrote:
Its disgusting and unacceptable whoever signed it on the NHS's behalf should be sacked end of !
Marslander once again I'm in agreement with you. If we encouraged more people to visit this would speed up recovery, ensure that patients are receiving the right care and prehaps cut NHS costs

As the financial crisis exposed chasing Money Money Money as the Abba song says It's a rich man's world. But the long term damage to creating real jobs is one of the reasons in the rise of record levels of youth unemployment.

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I SEE U says...
10:32am Sat 9 Mar 13

The reason for the high price for parking is to pay for the clinical leads car and the christmas parties, it wont change.

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Hornets number 12 fan says...
11:18am Sat 9 Mar 13

I SEE U wrote:
The reason for the high price for parking is to pay for the clinical leads car and the christmas parties, it wont change.
Thats big statement to make without any proof? can you back this up?

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Home Truths says...
8:09am Tue 12 Mar 13

how can they possibly make a loss on the car parks. They have been there for years and have no maintenance so must cost peanits to run. Oh....of course.... CPC have to make a profit and then there are the backhanders to pay for.

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MarsLander says...
8:22am Tue 12 Mar 13

The only way to stop this is to sack those at at the top, to set an example that they will not get away with it.

Any chance of that?

Fat chance!

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OAC Bailiff says...
8:23am Tue 12 Mar 13

**** disgraceful are other places like the high street going to follow suite its bad youve got a sick relative in hospital maybe dying and you have to pay to visit them a lot of people cant afford the charges especialy pensioners disrespectful

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The Rover says...
8:57am Tue 12 Mar 13

To park at the Harlequin for an hour costs £1.50, and to park at the hospital for an hour costs £4.

The Harlequin Car park is a well maintained, Multi Storey Car Park which is designed to make money. The Hospital Car Park is really no more than Tarmac over a field, which is there to allow visitors to park to visit their sick friends/family. How can this make sense? How can the Harlequin charge significantly less than the hospital for parking?

We have ALREADY paid for the hospital car park through our taxes, so ANY charge they make means we are paying twice. This is wrong.

The hospital are not listening to any suggestions that their parking charges are too high, and will not disclose details of their contract with CP Plus. The only way to make them listen would be if everyone boycotted the car park, or refused to pay for parking en mass. Is a parking ticked issued by CP Plus enforcable? Could they cope if no-one paid, and would they want to remain in the contract if no-one paid? Just a thought!

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OAC Bailiff says...
9:07am Tue 12 Mar 13

i doubt it rover greed greed greed

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Peter Jeffree says...
9:53am Tue 12 Mar 13

The WHHT are running an opinion survey on their website for people who use the hospital car park. If you have a view, you can fill in the survey form here: http://travel-survey
.com/whht2013/

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Roy Stockdill says...
10:58am Tue 12 Mar 13

I await howls of outrage for pointing this out, but there are plenty of buses that pass the hospital in both directions at fairly regular intervals!

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Mohandas says...
12:45pm Tue 12 Mar 13

Roy Stockdill wrote:
I await howls of outrage for pointing this out, but there are plenty of buses that pass the hospital in both directions at fairly regular intervals!
It’s a reasonable point Roy. However OAC Bailiff and the Rover present fairly strong arguments.
In fairness Roy, there are a whole host of reasons why a variety of people from miles around go to a large hospitals eg ‘a quick’ blood check, A&E, maternity, fractures, etc and perhaps a bus is not the best. Are bus routes and timetables related to hospital peaks as I’m not convinced that bus timetables bear any relationship to visiting times especially in the evenings especially the after effects of the night economy? Some areas are very poorly served by buses especially at weekends when people may have more time.

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Veritas says...
10:53am Wed 13 Mar 13

Looks like the WO are un covering more information about these contracts.

Finally some truth

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