Pressure grows for lower hospital parking charges (From Watford Observer)

Pressure grows for lower hospital parking charges

10:10am Friday 10th February 2012 in News By Mike Wright

Pressure grows for lower hospital parking charges

Pressure is intensifying this week on hospital bosses to lower parking charges at Watford General Hospital.

Senior politicians have united behind calls from a council task group for a cheaper £2.50 fee for two hours to be brought in at the Vicarage Road hospital.

Currently the cheapest charge at the hospital is £4 for three hours.

The authority which runs the hospital, West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust, has said it will consider the recommendation which came from the council’s overview and scrutiny committee.

However this week the town’s elected mayor has been joined with other party leaders at Watford Borough Council in backing the recommendation.

Liberal Democrat Dorothy Thornhill said she had been caught out by the steep charges before when she had been to the hospital with her husband.

She said: “I think it [the £2.50 charge] sounds like a sensible idea.

Parking in hospitals is a very emotive subject, it is a time when people don’t want to be ripped off.

When I took my husband to A&E there in the middle of the night I was flabbergasted at how much it cost.”

The mayor added she backed the committee’s recommendation that the hospital publicise its concessions for regular visitors more clearly.

The proposal also was backed by the leaders of the Conservative and Green groups on the council, Councillors Steve Johnson and Steve Rackett.

Councillor Rackett said: “We (the group) had a member in the task group and we both fully support the recommendation. We would urge the hospital to implement it as swiftly as possible.”

Labour leader Jagtar Singh Dhindsa said he wanted to see the trust go further and introduce a free hour or half hour for drivers visiting the hospital.

He added: “If there is a charge it should be small.”

The committee’s recommendation comes after it investigated parking charges at the hospital over the last couple of months.

Among the other changes the committee said it wanted brought in were more information on parking concessions, a pay on exit system and vouchers to be offered to drivers who parked for longer than their stay.

The hospital trust has defended the charges in the past saying they don’t even cover the cost of maintaining their car park service.

Jan Filochowski, the chief executive of the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said the trust would look into the task groups proposals.

He said: “The trust is grateful to the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee for their recommendations and is considering whether, and if so how, it can implement their recommendations.”