Local hospital trust made £3million from parking in past year

Rochdale Infirmary

Pennine Acute Trust, which runs Rochdale Infirmary, The Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury and North Manchester General Hospital, has made more than £3 million in the past year from parking.

Liz McInnes, MP for Heywood and Middleton, has called for NHS parking charges to be scrapped.

Ms McInnes said: “I was shocked to read that Pennine Acute have made so much money from charging patients, carers and staff to park at their hospitals in the last year.

"I appreciate that there are some concessions in place for blue badge holders and patients attending for certain treatments, but the system is confusing and regardless of whatever concessions are in place the fact is that people in need of treatment, people visiting a loved one, and the staff responsible for providing care, are having £3 million taken out of their pockets for the privilege.

"Parking fees have been scrapped in Scotland and Wales and what is good enough for them should be good enough for us in England.

"The Labour Party has pledged to scrap all car parking fees when we form the next government and that can not come soon enough for NHS patients and staff.”

Barry Waterhouse, Travel and Access Manager at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “The amount of income the Trust receives each year from car parking charges appears high as we control nearly 5,000 parking spaces across five locations. All of the revenue we get from car parking charges, after costs have been covered, is reinvested back into our facilities across our four main hospital sites.

“Our parking for patients and visitors who are blue badge holders is free, it is also free to park for 30 minutes in designated orange drop off/pick up areas, and there are further parking concessions for patients and visitors.

“In August 2015 we opened a new 562 space staff parking area at The Royal Oldham Hospital at Westwood Park. This represented a significant investment of £2.6m and clearly demonstrates our commitment to reinvest the charges from parking for the benefit of all users.

“Most recently, we have opened new staff parking areas at Rochdale Infirmary and a new parking area at North Manchester General Hospital, which has sections for patient and visitor, plus staff use.”