The costs of hospital parking in the United kingdom have been widely criticised for many years. In Scotland and Wales car parking fees were largely abolished in 2008. Proposals to scrap charges have been criticised on several grounds. The cost of running secure car parking is substantial. If a surplus is generated it is used to pay for healthcare. In many hospital sites there is a shortage of car parking space and making it free will encourage people to come to hospital by car without generating any extra space. Where hospital parking is already free it may be used by people who are not visiting the hospital, and it does nothing to discourage the inappropriate use of cars. T
England
A third of hospitals in England increased their care parking charges in 2019. The total raised from parking fees was £254 million. A survey of 7,800 people found 86% said parking added to the stress of their hospital visit and they described the fees as a "rip-off", "extortionate" and "astronomical". Car parking fees were an issue in the 2019 United Kingdom general election. After the election Matt Hancock announced that all the 206 NHS hospital trusts in England would be expected to provide free car parking from April 2020 to people that may be frequent hospital visitors, or those disproportionately impacted by daily or hourly charges for parking, including blue badge holders, frequent outpatient attenders, parents staying overnight with sick children in hospital, and NHS staff working nightshifts.
There have been attacks on cars in the car park at Wrexham Maelor Hospital which apparently is not adequately supervised. Local residents have called for charges to pay for better security. Cardiff and Vale University Health Board permit free parking for four hours and an additional four hours free by entering their registration into electronic screens in the hospitals. From February 2020 they are proposing to reduce the additional hours to two, to "reduce inappropriate parking on hospital sites". The Community Health Council say that problems are caused by administration and non-clinical staff abusing the system when they should be using the park and ride system.
From 2016/17 to 2018/19 the Northern Ireland health trusts collected £15,673,977 from hospital car parking charges. More £2.8 million of that was charges for staff parking. Charges are decided individually by the trusts. The campaign groupPatient Voice NI said no patient or employee should have to pay to park at a hospital.
