Helen Duffett

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Norman Lamb on NHS parking charges

By | Wed 19th August 2009 - 2:02 pm

Liberal Democrat Health spokesman Norman Lamb says the NHS is using car parking charges as a “tax on the sick.”

From the Telegraph:

Every year the NHS in England makes over £100 million from parking charges. While these charges do generate some much-needed income for the NHS, they can also cause real hardship for patients and their families. Patients are often faced with eye-wateringly high parking costs, but poor public transport links means that they sometimes have little alternative but to pay up. This is a scandalous and unfair situation: it needs to change.

However, I do not believe that we should scrap all car parking charges for every patient and member of staff. At a time when NHS finances are under increasing pressure, we should not be diverting money away from patient care to subsidise car park maintenance. A balance needs to be struck which allows hospitals to cover their costs while not imposing too heavy a burden on those who have to use NHS car parks. Hospital parking charges have a disproportionate impact on regular visitors: cancer patients, people on dialysis, diabetics, older people and their families. This is a cruel system and represents a pernicious tax on the sick.

You can read the full piece here, including the Liberal Democrats’ proposed solution.

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in LibLink.
Advert

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Rose Runswick
    Thank you for saying this, international law is our best hope for a fairer and more peaceful world, I worry the memory of why it came about in the first place i...
  • Tristan Ward
    Sanctions should absolutely continue, but the idea that Britain should not rearm is to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s. Appeasement is not an option....
  • Katharine Pindar
    Paul Barker: you are right, Paul, in the wider world we do seem largely invisible. That was for instance clear in today's Laura Kuennsberg show when, you could ...
  • tom arms
    The first known use of the phrase "May you live in interesting times" was towards the end of the 19th century when Joseph Chamberlain used it in several speech...
  • Andy Daer
    John is, of course, right to remind us all of the need to uphold international law. Today we've seen Trump congratulate the man he had previously distanced h...