Hospital parking in the spotlight

Parking at hospitals and healthcare services is always going to be a soft target for the media to tell a good story about how not to do it. Healthcare is very personal, second only, it seems to finding somewhere to park. In combination it’s always an opportunity for an emotional headline.

Free parking at hospitals is the norm in Wales and Scotland as governments pander to the popular demand. Increasingly there is a demand for England to follow suit. None of this is without consequences and it is only too apparent in Scotland and Wales that there is no such thing as a free parking space as there is always someone who is paying for it.

Is it right then that dwindling healthcare budgets should be used to provide parking facilities for those who choose to drive to hospital and yet those who arrive by public transport continue to pay? Shouldn’t healthcare budgets be used to provide healthcare?

Demand & supply
The big difference between parking at hospitals and other healthcare facilities, and parking for business and leisure is that often there is little choice. Few people choose to go to hospital and even fewer have a choice of which hospital. These are facilities used most when we are unwell or seeking medical advice or obtaining treatment for long-term conditions. At best we are visiting someone who is unwell.

Like so many other places, the demand for parking spaces at hospitals exceeds the supply and therefore it needs to be rationed and managed. How best then do we manage it? How do you prioritise allocation of spaces and use? How is it paid for? What is the impact on the community served by the hospital? Is it a good neighbour? These are all topics for debate and resolution.

Just over a year ago the BPA launched its Hospital Parking Charter, which 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, car parks with proper and adequate access controls, and fair and reasonable enforcement where this is required. There is of course, much more to the Charter and it’s now time to give it a ‘Health Check’.

We want to ensure that it’s fit for purpose and encourage more to sign up and to abide by its principles. We also want 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

Parking Special Interest Group
In support of this work, the BPA has 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. It became very clear at a recent meeting of this group that there are some serious challenges and yet also some simple solutions. If only people knew about them.

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 and visitors, staff and healthcare professionals to ensure that access to healthcare 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.

The BPA’s Healthcare parking SIG second meeting in April was kindly hosted by Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. The meeting opened with a session on the Hospital Parking Charter, launched last year as a joint collaboration between the NHS Confederation, the Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC) and the BPA. This was an opportunity to review the Charter and discuss potential for additional development to bring it in line with the newly published Healthcare Parking Good Practice Guide, which was launched by the HFC in March.

Keith Sammonds, managing director of HFC, presented the Good Practice Guide, which sits alongside a suite of facilities guides available to NHS practitioners. The guide aims to give NHS Trusts practical support to ensure their parking and traffic management operations are in line with what is considered to be best practice.

The group also had the opportunity to look in detail at enforcement on healthcare sites by listening to case studies, views from the private sector and a presentation by the BPA on the Approved Operator Scheme and implications of the Freedom Bill, which is currently making its journey through parliament. The Protection of Freedoms Bill, to give it its full title, covers a wide range of issues relating to civil liberties – the most significant sections of the bill for parking practitioners relate to a proposal for a complete ban of clamping and towing away on private land in England and Wales, and the move towards keeper liability in the instance of issue of penalties.

Rouge clamping
The first of these issues has been strongly opposed by the BPA who has been lobbying government at senior level, including presenting its case to the Bill Committee recently. The BPA considers that an outright ban is not the way forward to help prevent rogue clamping, which only represents a minority of current operators in the sector.

The BPA is also concerned that this proposal gives the landowner no option of last resort to deal with problem vehicles dangerously parked/causing obstruction or persistent evaders. The case has been presented that government should consider regulating parking enforcement in the private sector in line with the highly regulated public sector regime.

The second issue has been presented by the BPA to government to enable private operators who ticket and use DVLA records to pursue penalties to have the same rights as local authorities to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable. At present driver liability presents the motorist with an easy route of appeal by claiming they weren’t driving the vehicle at the time which, without evidence to the contrary makes pursuing such penalties extremely difficult.

The group will continue to develop and start looking at forging links with relevant stakeholders and other sectors within parking from whom the members can learn and develop cooperative working relationships. A small working group has been formed which will meet shortly to discuss the resources they would like BPA to develop for them and to plan future agendas and identify key stakeholder working opportunities. If you are interested in getting involved in this working group please contact Alison Tooze alison.t@britishparking.co.uk

The next meeting of the group will be held in conjunction with the BPA’s Higher Education Parking SIG. Already on the agenda is a session looking at the provision of disabled parking including a view from the motorist, which will be presented by Disabled Motoring UK. In addition the group will look at methods for hitting carbon reduction targets and managing parking and parking policy at combined hospital/university sites. The meeting will take place 28 June at the RHS Conference Centre in central London. Places are limited – if you wish to attend please contact the BPA.

For more information
Tel: 01444 447300
Fax: 01444 454105
info@britishparking.co.uk
www.britishparking.co.uk