East Lancashire hospitals trust may have to fund free parking (From Lancashire Telegraph)

East Lancashire hospitals trust may have to fund free parking

7:10pm Tuesday 29th December 2009 in News By Neil Docking, Reporter

PAY OFF: East Lancashire hospitals could face costly bills over Government plans for free hospital parking

CASH-STRAPPED hospital bosses have been told they would have to fund new free car parking schemes by making more spending cuts.

A consultation on the abolition of hospital car parking charges was launched by the Health Secretary yesterday.

Andy Burnham has pledged to phase out parking charges for in-patients and some out-patients and to introduce parking permits to allow friends and relatives to visit in-patients for free if the Government is re-elected.

But because East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has signed contracts with private firms to run its car parks, it may have to stump up compensation for their lost revenue, despite the fact it is already facing an end of year shortfall of up to £8million.

The trust is just five years into a 38-year contract with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) firm Consort Health-care, which built the £113million Royal Blackburn Hospital extension, and Catalyst Healthcare, which built the £30million Phase Five extension at Burnley General Hospital.

Patients, visitors and staff pay at least £1.80 every time they park at the hospitals, increasing to £3.80 if they stay more than six hours.

These charges add up to nearly £600,000 during the past 12 months – around £337,000 of which came from the public, and £250,000 from staff.

This money goes to the PFI firms, once running costs have been met.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “If it is cost effective to break that contract then that can be done, or if it is more effective to renegotiate that contract, then that can be done.

“There will be costs reimbursed to the company in either case which will have to be absorbed through other savings made by the trust, such as back office savings.”

Jack Straw, Blackburn’s Labour MP, urged the firms to renegotiate their contracts.

He said: “It would be unfair if free parking was denied as a result of a PFI contract, which has otherwise brought great benefits.”

Nigel Evans, Conservative MP for the Ribble Valley, said hospital parking charges were a ‘stealth tax on hospital visitors’ and abolishing them would be the ‘best New Year gift’ for patients, their families and friends.

But he warned: “The NHS has to work very closely with the trust to make sure services are not affected.”

The trust said it had not yet received any information from the Department of Health about the proposals and would ‘work closely with PFI partners to understand what it means’.