NHS staff deserve free hospital parking - Jayne Dowle

In a list of government spending priorities which already appears arbitrary in some respects, there has been no guarantee that free parking will remain.

Whilst the Chancellor impressed us with his exhortation to get back out into town centres and beer gardens and spend, spend, spend with the fervour of Viv Nicholson on a bender, it seems to have been overlooked.

Back in March, as part of the raft of measures to support NHS workers, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that Ministers would cover the cost of hospital car parking in England for staff “going above and beyond every day”.

Now the Department of Health has said the scheme cannot continue indefinitely and only “key patient groups” and staff in “certain circumstances” will be able to park free of charge.

The row started when, in response to a letter from York Central MP Rachael Maskell, Health Minister Edward Argar claimed free NHS parking couldn’t carry on forever and revealed that officials were looking at how long it would “need” to go on.

Hospital parking is already a raw nerve for both patients and staff. I know senior nurses who have turned down jobs at certain Yorkshire hospitals, including the Royal Hallamshire in Sheffield, because of the difficulty and cost of parking.

Those at the start of their careers, such as unpaid student nurses, simply can’t afford it. Matt Hancock must have realised this; the wherewithal to get to work safely and affordably was a crucial aspect of engaging huge numbers of NHS staff to deal with the crisis.

Continuing to treat nurses, doctors, student nurses and healthcare support workers with the respect they deserve after months of relentless toil is the least the Government could do.

It would be simple, surely. And cost millions rather than billions to write a cheque to cover the cost, which may be brokered between hospital trusts, local councils and private parking firms.

Instead, we have an undignified squabble; NHS unions are incandescent and then there’s the unedifying spectacle of the Prime Minister rounding on Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons and telling the Opposition leader to “take his latest bandwagon and park it free somewhere else”. Playground politics instead of clear and rational debate. If the bit about “parking” was meant to be a joke, no-one was laughing.

Coronavirus infection rates may well be on a generally downwards trajectory in many parts of the UK, but this doesn’t mean it has gone away.

The British Medical Association says reintroducing charges while the virus is still being fought would be “a rebuff to the immense efforts of staff across the country and the sacrifices they have made to keep others safe”.

For months yet, even years, NHS staff will be prevailed upon to work over and above the call of duty. Not just to look after patients still receiving treatment for coronavirus, but those yet to come, and the many millions suffering from entirely unrelated medical conditions.

This uncertainty over parking charges only serves to highlight yet another inconsistency in the Government’s approach to coming out of lockdown. On one hand, it’s everything back to normal, on the other we’re being warned we should prepare for a second wave. Or a third. Or winter flu.

Like many cynics, I used to think that this constant vacillation was some kind of super-clever psychological game, or gaslighting as the psychologists call it. Now, I’m beginning to suspect that it’s not even that interesting; it’s sheer incompetency manifesting as obfuscation.

It was all very well being urged to clap for carers, but all that public goodwill didn’t pay their wages. A simple show of support for free parking for the foreseeable would have been a quick hit and cost far less than many of the other measures the Treasury is funding.

The Government is on already shaky ground with NHS staff and carers. The Prime Minister has caused enough of a furore amongst the ranks with his ill-advised comments about care homes being to blame for the initial spread of coronavirus.

A robust assertion that free NHS parking was safe in his hands would surely have made him more friends than any amount of half-price meal deals.

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