{"id":16524,"date":"2018-10-17T15:48:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T14:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16524"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:09","slug":"nhs-staff-car-parking-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16524","title":{"rendered":"‘Tax on going to work’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NHS staff in England are being hit with substantial parking fees which totalled nearly \u00c2\u014170m last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a situation that Unite has slammed as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098tax on going to work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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New figures from NHS Digital<\/a>, which collects data for and about the health service, show that in the 2017\/2018 year, health trusts cashed in on \u00c2\u014169.5m in parking charges and fines from NHS workers. This was in addition to \u00c2\u0141157m raised from parking charges and fines on patients and visitors in the same year, which brought the total raised by the NHS on car parking to \u00c2\u0141226m.<\/p>\n

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Car parking income this year is significantly up from 2016\/2017, when NHS trusts collected \u00c2\u0141174m. Last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s figures obtained from a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the Press Association<\/a> found that nearly \u00c2\u01411m in revenue was generated from fines, up by a third from the previous financial year.<\/p>\n

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The FoI request also revealed that half of all trusts charged disabled people for parking in some or all of their disabled parking spaces. Two-thirds of trusts made more than \u00c2\u01411m in car parking revenue in each of the three years previous.<\/p>\n

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Commenting on the latest figures, a spokesperson for NHS Improvement claimed that car parking charges were necessary so that \u00e2\u20ac\u015btrusts continue to develop their commercial income opportunities.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is so that they can maintain their services and ensure they can provide patients with high quality care, both now and in future.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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But in Wales, car parking charges have been abolished across the board after the last parking contract with a private firm expired earlier this year. In Scotland, parking fines and charges are largely abolished as well.<\/p>\n

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Unite national officer for health Sarah Carpenter said the millions in car parking charges made off the backs of NHS staff are unfair, especially in light of the first pay rise workers have received in years.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is a scandal that NHS trusts in England have pocketed nearly \u00c2\u014170m from staff car parking charges in the year 2017\/18, as it is basically \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a tax on going to work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that hard-pressed NHS employees are forced to pay,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSuch a large figure, revealed in the NHS Estates Returns Information, will take a large chunk out of the gains in the current NHS pay package which saw most staff get a pay rise of 6.5 per cent over the next three years,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Carpenter added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis pernicious trend is replicated by financially squeezed trusts across England \u00e2\u20ac\u201c our members are being used as an extra income stream for these trusts.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe would like a situation where dedicated NHS staff, who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t earn a fortune, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to pay to park their cars to go to work to look after the sick, the vulnerable and the injured 365 days a year.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NHS staff in England are being hit with substantial parking fees which totalled nearly \u00c2\u014170m last year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a situation that Unite has slammed as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098tax on going to work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.   New figures from NHS Digital, which collects data for and about the health service, show that in the 2017\/2018 year, health trusts cashed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[739,29],"wps_subtitle":"NHS staff hit with \u00c2\u014170m in car parking charges and fines","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25782,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16524\/revisions\/25782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}