To charge or not to charge?

In this article, the Parking Association takes a look at the controversial subject of hospital car park charges. We examine both sides of the argument and look at what the options are. We also examine how hospitals can ensure that, if they go the route of charging for parking, patients and staff are provided with the highest level of service.

Money well spent
NHS Trusts are increasingly under pressure to ensure that health funding is used to provide health care services. The car is just one means of transport to hospitals, with public transport usually an option too. Parking at some hospitals is often very busy, with competing demands that cannot all be met. Staff, patients and their visitors have different needs and priorities and it is necessary to manage the parking to ensure that it is used effectively and efficiently, and priority is given to those most in need of it.
    
The first hospitals to start charging were located in London. Pressure on spaces is the main reason behind many hospitals introducing parking charges. Take the situation where the surrounding area to the hospital starts controlled parking and charging. If the hospital has free parking, then most drivers will take that option instead of paying for parking nearby. Similar problems occur if a hospital is located near to train stations or business premises where motorists have to pay for parking.
    
Hospitals in town centres and near other facilities have to ensure that their parking is protected against use by others who have no business at the hospital, such as commuters, shoppers and local residents, and effective parking management is important in these circumstances.

Controlled parking
The last ten years has seen a rise in the number of hospitals introducing some form of controlled parking. A regular practice initially was for hospitals to use their own staff to patrol the car parks, but the NHS is there to care for people, not manage car parks. This has given rise to parking operators being brought in to manage and run the facilities. Many hospitals and operators take a joint venture approach, which allows them to project what the scheme will cost and the potential for any surplus.
    
Where NHS Trusts do make a surplus income from parking operations, this is usually diverted to enhance patient care facilities or to support the parking charges for people with disabilities or with life-threatening illness who make frequent and regular visits to the hospital.

Options available
Hospitals have different options with controlled parking – it’s not always a case of just charging for parking. One option is to offer free parking for up to two hours, similar to the schemes run by supermarkets and retail parks. Most people do not generally spend more than this length of time at the hospital, be it visiting or for appointments. This can work well with smaller hospitals, and tickets can be made available if someone needs to stay longer. Problems with this system can arise if parking in the areas around the hospital are Pay and Display - people will then take advantage of the free parking at the hospital.
    
For larger and city centre hospitals, the most common option is Pay and Display. With this system, hospitals have the flexibility to issue permits to staff or provide a reduced rate for parking. They can also offer permits to patients who are terminally ill or those visiting patients in the hospital for a long-term stay for the time they need.
    
In Wales, free charging will be available at almost every hospital by 2011. The decision has split the country, with many, in particular patients’ groups, welcoming it and other parties concerned that the costs will be taken from vital frontline care.
    
In England, the government has given the decision to local health chiefs to decide on policy and charges are common. This is similar to Northern Ireland, but a review of this policy is currently being undertaken.
    
In Scotland, the government has introduced a maximum of £3 a day for parking, although many hospitals charge less.
    
The case is still out for what, if any, changes government and local government will make to hospital car park charging policies. The heart of the debate should always be focused on whether the policies ensure that key staff, patients and visitors can get to hospitals easily by public transport, and also that they can actually park at the hospital when they need to.

Caring for your customers
If a hospital decides to employ an operator to manage and run its parking facilities, a new scheme from the British Parking Association (BPA) provides a benchmark of standards.
    
Part of the BPA’s ongoing commitment is raising standards across the parking industry. On 1 October last year the BPA launched a new scheme to provide a level of ‘legitimacy’ and self-regulation to parking enforcement on private land and unregulated public car parks. This effectively means parking, for example, at supermarkets, retail parks, railway stations and hospitals.
    
As a largely unregulated part of the industry, controlled parking on private land has gained a reputation in some quarters as being underhand, and those who undertake such activity, of being unscrupulous. The real picture is that there are many efficient, helpful operators working on private land and unregulated car parks today.
    
Since 1 October 2007 the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will only release vehicle registration information electronically to those companies that are members of an Accredited Trade Association, of which the BPA is the first.

Approved Operator Scheme
At the same time, the BPA launched its own Approved Operator Scheme (AOS), backed by the Code of Practice for Parking Enforcement on Private Land and Unregulated Car Parks. Over time, the aim is that landowners wishing to manage their property will only contract with ‘approved operators’ and those that act fairly and in accordance with a recognised code of practice.
    
Continued BPA membership is dependent on operators in this sector signing up to the Code of Practice and joining the AOS. Compliance with the Code will be monitored by the BPA and members will be required to submit evidence of compliance annually, highlighting any issues and identifying proposed solutions. A BPA team will conduct regular and random testing via on-site inspections to ensure that the Code’s principles are being maintained.
    
Where members’ operations are found wanting, remedial action will be a requirement; where this does not happen and failure to comply with the Code persists, a member shall be suspended, and possibly expelled from the BPA.
    
Since the launch of the Approved Operator Scheme in October much interest has been generated from the off-street industry. To date, over 45 operators have achieved compliance and are fully ‘signed up’, with 23 applications being processed.  The size of the operation doesn’t matter, with membership structured to suit large to very small operators, and plans are also being developed to extend the membership, on an associate level, to landowners.
    
The aim is to make landowners aware of the pitfalls of employing ‘cowboy’ operators and to only allow those reputable operators that have achieved AOS status to tender for their contracts. In this way it will become more and more difficult for the rogue operators to get new business, giving them the financial incentive to ‘tow the line’.

Raising the standards
The goals of the AOS and Code of Practice are to raise standards through self-regulation within the industry, and to help distinguish the reputable from the rogue companies.
    
For hospitals, whose main purpose is saving lives and caring for people, it makes sense to ensure you take on a company you can trust as your parking operator. Ensuring that only companies which are members of the scheme are employed to manage your parking facilities demonstrates you are employing fair and reasonable parking policies in your car parks. It can make everyone's stay at the hospital that little bit easier.

For more information
Web: www.britishparking.co.uk
E-mail: aos@britishparking.co.uk