Finding a fair way to handle hospital parking

As highlighted in previous articles, The British Parking Association (BPA) have initiated a Healthcare Parking Special Interest Group, which brings together people in NHS facilities, with parking operators and service providers to share knowledge and experience. There are some serious challenges that face NHS trusts and healthcare facilities in terms of providing and managing parking at their sites.

The Special Interest Group met for the third time on 28 June 2011. This was a combined meeting with the recently formed Higher Education Special Interest Group and was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls Conference Centre in Westminster London.

BPA chief executive Patrick Troy opened the meeting by welcoming attendees and providing an overview of the day. Two new Chairs have been elected, one for each Special Interest Group. They are Laura Kelly, who is travel coordinator of Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Trust and Ian Goodwin, travel plan manager at Manchester Metropolitan University. Both outlined their aims for their respective groups and were warmly welcomed to their new roles.

REDUCING CRIME ON SITE
The BPA’s Park Mark Safer Parking Scheme was the main feature of the morning session. BPA’s director of operations and technical services Kelvin Reynolds opened the session with an overview of the scheme’s current marketing activity. The BPA are raising awareness of the scheme by using various marketing channels, including social media platforms Twitter and Facebook and further initiatives will be implemented late in the year.
Safer Parking Scheme development manager for London and Hampshire Graham Chapman spoke next about the benefits of the scheme and how with the help of police accredited assessors, it is helping reduce crime and the fear of crime in over 4500 car parks throughout the UK.

Many NHS trusts and health boards across the UK are Park Mark award holders and Jayne King from Guy & St. Thomas was the next speaker, providing the group with evidence of how effective the award has been in reducing crime at her particular site.
Park Mark is an important component in the challenge to make hospital car parks better and many NHS trusts and health boards across the UK are Park Mark award holders. With round-the-clock 24-hour staffing and patient needs, hospitals have a bigger incentive to reduce the fear of crime than perhaps anywhere else.

DUTY OF CARE
There is a duty of care that an employer has for staff in providing parking and according to recent studies, over half the parking at all hospitals is used by staff and in some cases it is three quarters.

Park Mark can reassure staff, visitors and patients that the healthcare provider is concerned about their welfare and safety overall and not just in the clinical facilities.

Helen Dolphin of Disabled Motoring UK was the next speaker. Parking is a major topic for her organisation and having recently surveyed their membership, one of the issues they face Is that disabled drivers are finding there are no longer specific car parks for patients, staff or day patients and that disabled bays are often a long way from the actual facilities that they need to access.

Research has also found that the bays are often misused, for example skips have been placed in them, denying users access. Machines are often inaccessible and there is a call to make them more user friendly so that disabled users can actually pay for their parking.

The survey also found that the process of claiming back money for free parking needs to be simplified. For example, those patient receiving treatment for long term illnesses. Parking charges need to be fair – something advocated strongly by the BPA’s own Hospital Parking Charter.

The charter, which was launched in 2010, sets out the importance of offering a high standard of management and customer service, reflecting the needs of all car park users including patients, visitors and staff and with proper and adequate access controls and fair and reasonable enforcement where this is required.

The BPA are currently reviewing this document, one year on to ensure that it’s fit for purpose and to encourage more trusts, car park operators and other key stakeholders to sign up and to abide by its principles. The intention is also to make the charter easier to understand, simple to promote and above all, make sure that its intentions are delivered.      This work continues through 2011 and if you would like to help you can do so by contacting Dave Smith at dave.s@britishparking.co.uk

FINDING THE GENUINE USER
In Scotland, where most hospital car parks do not charge for parking, there have been numerous cases of shoppers and commuters simply using the facilities for as long as they want. The difficulty is identifying who is a genuine visitor and who is not there for healthcare.

In the afternoon session of the Special Interest Group meeting, Magdalena Golebiewska presented a case study about the problems facing Luton and Dunstable NHS Foundation Trust and this was followed by Tracy Milne who talked about the Ipswich NHS Trust Hospital Ride Scheme as well as looking at the psychology of parking and the options for bringing about behavioural change.

Kelvin Reynolds returned to give a presentation of the use of signs and lines on the public highway and the day closed with a summing up and a look ahead to the next meeting which will take place on 24 November 2011 at a venue to be confirmed.

All of the above presentations will shortly be available on the BPA website at www.britishparking.co.uk

ABOUT THE BPA
The role of the BPA is to raise standards, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the healthcare environment. Balancing the needs of hospital patients, visitors, staff and healthcare professionals to ensure that access to health care is fair, and cost-effective, requires courage and determination. Parking managers at healthcare sites across the UK face these challenges every day. Working alone they seek to resolve their problems locally, often challenged by local media and, indeed, their own colleagues.

Working together through the BPA Healthcare parking Special interest Group we can collectively share knowledge and best practice, as well as campaign for better recognition of the services provided and the need for them to be properly funded. The health of the nation depends upon the NHS and in turn, the NHS depends upon the parking sector to help ensure that access to its facilities is fair and appropriate, properly managed and adequately funded.