Hospital car parking hell

Parking chaos is forcing patients and visitors to leave their cars huge distances from hospitals.

A Sunday Post probe has revealed there are so few spaces outside some of the country’s biggest infirmaries motorists are resorting to parking in nearby housing estates and shopping centres as they try to seek medical help or visit sick relatives.

Others are leaving their cars on double yellow lines, pavements, grass verges, loading bays and even dumping them in disabled spaces.

It’s feared the mayhem is costing the NHS millions of pounds to meet the cost of missed appointments.

Our reporters visited hospitals across Scotland and the north of England during busy visiting hours to see how easy it is to park after a survey of patients and visitors commissioned by The Sunday Post and conducted by yourviewk found 77% think hospital parking is inadequate.

Another 60% said they had been forced to park outside hospital grounds due to a lack of space.

Critics last night demanded the problem is tackled urgently.

Margaret Watt, of Scotland Patients Association, said: “We get so many complaints about this issue but nothing ever seems to change.

“We’ve visited some of these hospitals ourselves. In one case we were forced to walk for 15 minutes to get to the entrance.

“It’s completely unacceptable when you consider that there are sick, heavily pregnant, elderly and infirm patients attending hospital.”

The first car park our team visited was at Glasgow’s Gartnavel General. It was packed. Some patients and visitors had resorted to parking on grass verges and along pavements and many had been issued with tickets.

It was an identical picture at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow’s Yorkhill.

Karen McAlpine, who was taking one of her children to the hospital, said the problem is commonplace.

She said: “I’ve had to abandon the car on double yellow lines here a few times. You end up circling and circling.”

At St John’s in Livingston we joined a queue of cars searching for a space. We could not find an empty space but counted 25 cars dumped outside official bays.

Things were no better at the Western General in Edinburgh.When we arrived we found all the car parks crammed full.

A long line of cars had parked on a single yellow line on the busy Crewe Road South outside and some had been slapped with parking tickets.

One woman who parked on the road said there were no spaces when she arrived for an appointment. She said: “It’s always a nightmare here. You either risk a ticket or miss your appointment.”

The patient and visitor car park at the Victoria in Kirkcaldy was also full when we arrived with several cars parked on grass verges. Patients Catherine and Alvin Clay from Glenrothes said: “We were going to the Victoria on a weekly basis for five months. Most of the time when we got there we found there were no spaces left.”

At Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s General Main Car Park 2 at our reporters were met with a hand drawn sign stating “car park full”.

Patient Suzanne Scott took the bus from her home in Turriff, 35 miles away, to avoid the problem. She said: “I would prefer to be able to drive here but parking is too difficult.”

Our reporters also found limited parking at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital. Spaces close to the entrances were very limited. It was easier to get parked in more distant car parks, but the elderly or infirm could find it a struggle to walk that distance. The problem wasn’t as severe in the north of England where hospitals charge for parking.

Our reporter visited Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) and the city’s Freeman Hospital and discovered plenty of spaces. But the number of free bays is explained by the cost. Parking charges at both are £1.30 an hour, even on Sundays.

There were a few spaces in zone A at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.

Our reporter also went to the Royal Preston Hospital. In the evening, after some searching he was able to find a space in a car park close to the main entrance. But when visiting during the morning he could not find a space and was forced to leave his car next to kerb behind a row of other visitors who couldn’t find a spot.

Opposition parties in Scotland said that while they agreed with the SNP’s scrapping of hospital parking fees, more should be done to improve availability.

Labour’s health spokesman Neil Findlay blasted: “Staff, patients and visitors are being impacted by this and it really is about time that the Scottish Government provided support to NHS Boards to put in place satisfactory parking systems within and around hospitals across Scotland.”

Tory health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: “There’s absolutely no excuse for hospitals not to provide adequate parking for patients.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said car parking was a “limited resource” and that it expects NHS Boards to balance the parking needs of all patients, visitors and staff.

Additional reporting: Sally McDonald, Marc Meneaud, Ben Robinson and Ali Kirker.Have your say Take our NHS survey nowThe NHS celebrated its 65th birthday this year. For the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time, it remains something to be proud of and celebrated. But it is also facing huge pressures with an ageing population and spending cutbacks.Over the next few months The Sunday Post will be asking whether the NHS is fit for the 21st century and how could we improve it. But we need your help.We have teamed up with leading market research experts YourViewK to ask what you think. We have extended the opportunity for you to have your say in the second instalment of our exclusive three-part survey, which will be running over the coming weeks.Thank you to everyone who has already done so.You can access the simple questionnaire online by visiting completeasurvey.co.uk/yourviewk and following the instructions.You don’t have to have completed the first survey to take part we want everyone to have a say.