Charged for caring: nurses at work given parking fines

Community nurse Gemma Hayes* was on call and on a tight schedule. She left her car in the residents’ car park of a block where her last patient of the day lived and displayed her professional carer’s badge on the dashboard. When she returned she’d been charged £60.

“I was allocated 30 minutes for the call but spent an extra 45 minutes unpaid overtime as the elderly, housebound patient had additional needs,” says Hayes, who earns £24,200 and regularly works an extra unpaid hour on top of her eight-hour shifts. “I appealed, offering confirmation that I was carrying out a patient visit. It was rejected.

“A colleague told the patient of the charge and I’ve had to request not to visit again because she’s so upset she wants to repay me.”

One Parking Solution, which patrols the car park, has not responded to a request for a comment and its phone line rings unanswered. In its reply to Hayes’s appeal it declared that she should have displayed a valid visitor permit or asked the patient to telephone for an exemption.

Hayes says the patient, who pays an annual fee for a parking space for visitors, was unaware of such obligations and that health professionals do not have time to fetch permits when on call. “The 30 minutes allocated for my visit included travel time from my previous patient,” she says. “It takes extra minutes to open the key safe and go up in the lift and back again, so the idea of going up, getting a permit and taking it down to my car and then doing the same in reverse at the end is not practical.”

Hayes is one of a soaring number of medical staff who have been hit by the hefty charges while carrying out their duties. Kirsty Asher*, a senior nurse who works with Hayes, found a demand for £45 on her car after parking in the hospital where she is based.

“It was a bank holiday and the whole site was empty,” she says. “You are supposed to have a permit, but the website kept crashing and as that was my last day in the job I displayed my professional carer’s badge instead. Normally, we park on the street some walk away and when you are carrying equipment it can be very difficult. It was obvious that I was working; it was a pure money-making exercise.”

In 2017, 75 doctors and nurses at the University Hospital of Wales were ordered by a court to pay £39,000 in parking charges accrued over a single month, and £26,000 in costs after private parking enforcers – hired by the hospital – imposed new restrictions. The medics claimed they had to use visitor car parks because Cardiff and Vale Hospital Trust issues more than 8,500 staff parking permits, but only provides around 1,800 spaces.

The case was brought by the enforcement agency against three staff members who had over 100 charge notices outstanding between them, but it was binding on 72 others who had also been ticketed, despite displaying paid-for staff permits.

Sue Prior, a local campaigner who helped the nurses prepare their case, told the Observer that some NHS workers were considering leaving the profession because of the parking issues. “It’s not necessarily an option to get public transport, if it exists, when they’re on an early or night shift, and since shifts often overrun, staff in some hospitals are being charged for overstaying the maximum hours permitted,” she says.

“Some nurses never park in visitor bays because they don’t want to deprive patients of visits, so they leave their car on verges and get charged. They are the ones who stick with the job while running up charges because they are committed to patients.”

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board declined to comment.

Welsh hospitals stopped charging last year and Scotland abolished fees in 2009. However, NHS staff in England paid nearly £70m to park at hospitals in 2017-18, according to data from NHS Digital, while patients and visitors were charged almost £157m. Only 15% of the £226m total was ploughed back into the NHS. Much of the rest went to private firms contracted to patrol the car parks.

According to David Carrod of the British Motorists Protection Association, the system is designed to line the pockets of enforcement companies at the cost of staff and patients.

He says that often a representative of a private parking company (PPC) will approach hospital trusts with a promise to solve parking problems for no charge. “That’s all well and good for the first few weeks, as those who abuse the facility are deterred by the £100 parking penalty.

“But the PPC needs to make a profit, so the systems they put in are designed to be as difficult as possible to use. In many cases, staff permits are issued by a third-party company and can take days to come through, during which time more parking charges are issued.”

Following the passing of the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 in March, the government is working on a statutory single code of practice to which all companies must adhere, and a new independent appeals process to make it easier for drivers to contest unfair charges.

Last year, the DVLA shared 5.65m vehicle-keeper records with private firms: that practice could be banned if they fail to comply with new laws.

The changes in the law are unlikely to have any effect on rising charges, however. Four out of 10 hospitals increased their hourly fees between 2017 and 2018, according to NHS Digital figures – some by 100%.

Hospital staff in England pay subsidised rates but will still be subject to restrictions on how and when they can use their permits – and punitive charges when they breach them.

Patricia Marquis, director of the Royal College of Nursing in England, says: “Nursing staff work around the clock to keep patients safe – they should not be overcharged for doing their jobs. For staff working shifts, public transport is often not an option, so nurses and support workers have no choice but to pay parking charges that rise year on year. Struggling hospitals should not try to make money from their staff.”

Hayes reckons other road users will end up paying the price for the greed of private parking enforcers. “From now on, I and my colleagues will park on double yellow lines – as we are allowed to do with carer’s badges – leading to disruption of traffic flow, less visibility and further distances to carry equipment and supplies,” she says.

“I have friends in all areas of healthcare and everyone is struggling. It is a rewarding career and we do make a difference, but we can’t afford to lose a chunk of our wages to parking firms just for doing our job. I was charged for caring.”

* Names have been changed