Health chiefs this week dismissed new calls for car parking charges at the Princess Royal Hospital to be scrapped in the wake of the NHS in Scotland joining Wales in deciding to dump them.
Wrekin Tory MP Mark Pritchard said people were “fed up” with one rule for Wales and Scotland and another rule for England and said parking at all hospitals “should be scrapped.”
Mr Pritchard said: “The last thing on people’s minds when visiting sick relatives should be a parking ticket or having to find change for parking machines.”
David Wright, Labour MP for Telford, said: “I would prefer there to be no car parking charges at the Princess Royal Hospital. However, if we were to drop them, then we’d have to find the revenue from somewhere else.”
In Scotland, the charges are set to be dropped from December 31 at NHS hospitals. The Welsh Assembly has also abolished them.
Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, who announced the Scotland reforms, said: “It’s simply not fair to expect patients or visitors to have to pay when they come to hospital, when they may be suffering personal anxiety, stress or grief. Put bluntly, a car parking charge is often the last thing people need.”
In England, the government leaves it to local health authorities to decide on policy, meaning charges are common.
The British Medical Association has already this year demanded car park charges should be scrapped across the UK, calling them “a tax on the sick.”
But Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust says the local charges are unlikely to be dropped.
The controversial pay and display system was introduced at the Princess Royal in 2004 from its sister the Royal Shrewsbury. The tariff is now £2 and across both sites it raises more than £600,000 a year.
Tom Taylor, the trust’s chief executive, said: “There are many factors for hospitals to consider when managing their car parks. We have to ensure that we meet national guidance from the Department of Health.
“We have to cover the maintenance costs of providing a car park - if we did not charge, then these costs would have to be found elsewhere in the NHS budget.
“The previous management of the Trust agreed a contract for car parks at our hospitals in 2006.
“At present we are not in a position to renegotiate that contract because the penalty charges would be too great, which would have an undue impact on other hospital services. However, I have committed to reviewing the contract at the earliest opportunity, but this is unlikely to result in car parking charges being stopped.”
By Janine Griffiths