Paying to work

Kettering General Hospital staff struggling under seven years of public sector pay freezes will have to pay ÂŁ20 a day for parking for fourth months as a new car park is built.

The charges were introduced by Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, up from the current charge of ÂŁ8.20 a day.

The Trust has said the £20 a day fee is “designed to discourage staff from parking on site in visitor car parks” while the new park is under construction and highlighted that off-site parking was available from which staff could walk or take a mini-bus.

But Unite has hit back, calling the charge “extortionate” and argued that management should pick up the difference in parking charges for staff while construction is underway.

“Cash-strapped NHS staff appear to be bearing the financial burden of the car parking building programme at Kettering General Hospital,” said Unite regional officer Sally Mortimer.

“The stark choice is for NHS employees to pay the outrageous £20 a day car parking fee during the four-months of construction work – or walk ten to 15 minutes in all weathers to care for the sick and vulnerable, or wait for the mini-bus service when it is not clear how frequent this mini-bus will be,” she added.

“The management at Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust seems to have conveniently forgotten that NHS staff received a miserly one per cent pay rise this year and have seen, in the majority of cases, their incomes seriously eroded in real terms by 17 per cent since 2010.

“At a time when there have been reports of nurses using food banks across the UK, to use this £20 daily fee to ration car parking demand is absolutely ludicrous,” Mortimer went on to say. “The trust bosses should be picking up the difference between the current £8.20 daily fee and the extortionate £20 fee for their hard-working and dedicated employees– it is the decent thing to do.

“While Unite understands that increased car parking is required at the hospital, it would seem that the needs of NHS staff are secondary when set against the rapacious collection of this hefty, if temporary, car parking fee.”

The outrageous fees being levied on Kettering Hospital staff come after figures out last year showed that NHS hospitals are raking in more from parking charges than ever – in 2015, England collected £120m from parking charges alone, up 5 per cent from the year previous.

Labour: end charges

The toll this is taking on NHS staff who’ve already suffered unprecedented wage stagnation as their living standards have plummeted prompted Labour earlier this month to pledge to end NHS parking charges in England – as is already the case in Scotland and Wales.

An end to hospital parking charges would be a huge boost to NHS staff – some of whom pay up to £100 a month just to park.

The Labour party has said the pledge would be fully paid for by a hike in tax for private health premiums from the current rate of 12 per cent to 20 per cent.

Unite has hailed Labour’s campaign promise to end parking charges.

“Labour’s pledge to end NHS car parking charges is a boost to every NHS worker forking out nearly £100 a month to park,” said Unite national officer Sarah Carpenter. “It will give them extra money in really tough times.

“Charging cash-strapped health visitors, community nurses, biomedical scientists, porters, plumbers and electricians, already hit by seven years of pay freezes and cuts, to park was completely immoral.

“The majority of NHS staff have experienced a loss of income in real terms of about 17 per cent since 2010.

“When you have trained nurses leaving the profession to stack shelfs in supermarkets as reported by NHS Provider’s chief executive Chris Hopson, then there is a crisis that we ignore at our peril.

“There are very few other public servants who have to pay for the privilege of parking,” Carpenter pointed out. “Ending NHS parking charges is a victory for common sense and natural justice.

“Unite has long argued that there should be parity across the UK. Scotland and Wales don’t charge their NHS staff for coming to work and this should be the same in England.

“Unite is calling for a properly-funded NHS and an end of the pay cap which is causing so much misery and driving workers from the professions that they love.”