Parking charges at St Mary’s Hospital have gone up by as much as 54% this week.
On Monday (3rd October), charges in the car park at the Island’s only hospital were bumped up – for the first time in nearly 5 years.
This comes after free parking was instated at the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic allowing those visiting and working at the site to park for free for around 2 years.
To park for 1-2 hours before Monday it would’ve cost £1.40, but now parking for the same amount of time is £2.00, with parking for 1 hour costing £1.50 alone. All-day parking has also gone up from £6.50 to £7.00, a rise of 50p.
The most staggering increase though is for parking for up to 4 hours. Before the price hike, it cost £2.60 to park for up to 4 hours whereas now it costs a whole £4.00, 53.8% more.
The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has cited a review carried out in 2020 as the reason for the increase in parking fees amid the need to maintain the security and parking facilities and insists that the increase is in line with other hospitals in the region.
The new parking tariff is as follows:
- Up to 1 hour – £1.50
- 1 to 2 hours – £2.00
- 2 to 3 hours – £3.00
- 3 to 4 hours – £4.00
- 4 to 6 hours – £5.00
- 6 to 24 hours – £7.00
- Concessionary Rate – £1.50
A statement from the Isle of Wight NHS Trust says:
“The Trust will continue to offer a reduced rate for regular and frequent visitors and people with two or more outpatient appointments per week over a period of four weeks.
“Parking is free to visitors of long-term inpatients (over 14 days) and to disabled drivers (blue badge holders). Our designated drop off points remain free of charge for up to 30 minutes.
“The income generated from parking charges is used to provide a security service at St. Mary’s Hospital and to maintain the car parks across the site. Any additional revenue is invested back into supporting patient care.”
Whilst it is unknown as to how much the Trust made on parking fees in the last year, back in 2017/18 they made around £420,000, with visitors alone making up around £320,000 of that figure.
Total greed, that’s all there is to it.
need to maintain the security and parking facilities and insists that the increase is in line with other hospitals in the region
..
what maintenance – it is a flat area, tarmacked over, with white lines painted at various points. There is no actual cost, apart from occasional repainting of the white lines.
There is no need to charge for parking – they are just rinsing visitors and patients for money – utter daylight robbery.
and saying that it is in line with other hospitals is a pathetic, weak excuse, used by hospital administrators who talk poverty, yet rinse every penny they can out of patients and visitors alike.
Would make more if they ran themselves instead of parking company that takes huge %, what happens to PCNs. They had 2 year’s to update payment machines that many struggle to use,not a QWERTY key board,small digits, separate scan for card etc. How many PCNs issued and challenged?.
What is truly disgusting is that they charge staff for parking, and at the same rate whether they are a consultant or an HCA. Basically a pay cut by the back door.
They want get the parking meters work first,
Absolute disgrace, if they wanted to change parking charges it should have been a reduction. Most outpatient run late and can take over two hours pushing people into this new expensive fee.
Staff are already grossly underpaid, are there parking changes also going up?
This is day light robbery, but again what do you expect from those grossly overpaid managers who make these decisions !!!
For goodness sake people park here to either visit a sick patient,or because they have a appointment for being ill .
It’s bad enough somebody bring sick ,without having to worry about paying more money .
With the millions and millions that have been paid and squandered into the IW NHS trust surely
the least they can do is show some sort of support for the IW public with cheap parking.
Didn’t know there were any other hospitals on the island.
I don’t think I can afford to be sick any more.
Well, they are recouping the loss of the money because of covid
Charging your own staff to park at work is just plain odd! and charging people to visit sick relatives or have treatment seems rather rather cruel considering it is often a distressing time. There has to be a better, more civilized way, surely.
Where’s Bob ? And a strongly worded letter .. I park in B&Q and walk across, appointments always run late, what’s the justification for this increase, it’s not security or maintenance .. just fleecing the public ..
It’s cheaper by bus, and you don’t have to worry about cost etc. Simply boycott the car parks. Hit where it hurts the most, their pockets.