My hon. Friend raises an important point. There is room for flexibility, and all trusts should be looking at what they can do to make parking less prohibitive so that people are not put off.
It is galling for my constituents to know that parking charges are much lower in other areas of the town. Local authority car parks, shops and private parking companies all have the same issues of maintenance, lighting and security, albeit to different degrees, but they are not charging that high rate. It feels very much like profiteering off the back of people who have no choice but to be at hospital, whether that is for themselves, their friends or their relatives. The trust offers concessions through lower costs for blue badge holders, although they are not exempt from charges, as well as for parents who are staying overnight with poorly children and those having cancer treatment. That is, of course, incredibly welcome. However, when the justification for the charges is that they pay for the maintenance of the site, it really does not stack up, given the costs of other paid parking sites in the town.
An automatic number plate recognition system was recently installed at the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, which led to even more frustration and concern for constituents. While that fantastic new automated system was supposed to make the process a lot quicker and easier for people, all it did was to cause additional delays and costs. After spending time in the waiting room, as I had to, people had to come out to try to pay for their parking with the new machines. It caused absolute havoc, and there were queues going around the block, and people ended up tripping over into the next pay band and paying even more. The process caused an extraordinary amount of frustration and reflected very poorly on the trust, which is a real shame.
The knock-on effect of the charges is that surrounding streets, such as Second Avenue, Edge Avenue and Limetree Avenue, which are all residential streets with limited on-street parking, get filled with the cars of patients, staff and people attending the hospital. I know that there is nothing illegal about that. There is nothing wrong with people parking in those residential streets, but it really irritates residents if a parked car crosses a dropped kerb or impinges on people’s driveways. That is not only incredibly frustrating, but it gives rise to increased concerns about road safety, especially in school hours.
The right hon. Member for Harlow addressed very well the broader point that people with disabilities or long-term illnesses are generally financially worse off than the rest of the population. The additional cost represents a significant inconvenience and potential hardship for people who can least afford it.
Hospital staff have increasingly been talking to me about this issue. There have been discussions with staff about increasing the amount that they already pay to go to work. An increase has been postponed for now, but the opportunity for it to be brought back next year is, I understand, very much on the table, and the increase will be significant. As the right hon. Gentleman indicated, the people affected will be not just consultants or senior executives who might be earning a very good wage. We are also talking about porters, healthcare assistants and
medical secretaries—all the people behind the scenes who keep the hospital going—being expected to pay even more.
The frustrations for staff are immense. They say that they already struggle to get a parking space, not least because some shifts overrun. The likelihood that someone might do an eight-hour shift in the NHS at the moment is frankly negligible. Most people, through their own good will, are giving more to the NHS and working beyond their shift. They do not want to leave their patients in the middle of an incident. The number of parking spaces available is therefore reduced, and people are leaving home an awful lot earlier—an hour to an hour and a half earlier—than their shift starts, which increases their working day immensely.
Most of this is not just about travel time. I know that the roads are congested around the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, but that is not the only issue. There is also the problem that people are driving around car parks trying to find a space. It is incredibly frustrating that people are paying for a space at work and cannot get one, and sometimes that is even making them late for work.