New NHS apartheid row as Scotland moves to abolish hospital parking charges

Parking charges were scrapped at Scottish hospitals yesterday – prompting angry claims that English patients are once again the victims of NHS ‘apartheid’.

The Scottish Executive followed the Welsh Assembly by axing the deeply unpopular fees – branded a ‘stealth tax on the sick’.

But Health Minister Ben Bradshaw caused outrage by refusing to drop them in England, where hospital trusts raked in more than £100million from parking last year.

The controversial decision will add to growing frustration at the widening health care divide, under which patients in England are denied services and benefits enjoyed by those elsewhere in the UK.

In Scotland, NHS patients have access to more cancer drugs, benefit

from free eye tests and get free personal care. Prescriptions in Wales are free, while English patients must pay £6.85.

Patients and visitors are not the only ones who lose out from parking charges. At many hospitals doctors and nurses also have to pay.

Scottish health minister Nicola Sturgeon said car parking charges would be scrapped at 14 NHS hospitals from December 31.

She said: ‘It’s simply not fair to expect patients or visitors to have to pay at a time when they may be suffering personal anxiety, stress or grief.’

The SNP minister said the move would cost the NHS in Scotland £5.5million a year. Charges will still apply at three hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative because cancelling contracts with firms running their car parks would be too expensive.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘Patients, staff and visitors in England will feel it extremely unfair that they are still paying through the nose.

‘People with chronic illness who attend hospital regularly are being hammered by exorparkingbitant charges. It has become an unacceptable tax on sickness and we are at risk of creating apartheid in the NHS.’

Joyce Robins of the pressure group Patient Concern said: ‘The last thing people should have to worry about when they arrive at hospital is whether they have enough change for a ticket and whether they will get back to their car before it is towed away.

‘The question needs to be asked: Why is England becoming a poor relation when it comes to the NHS?’

Dr Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, said: ‘This should create further pressure on the Department of Health in England to address the oftenextortionate costs of hospital car parking.’

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: ‘If parking charges are damaging patients’ access to services, stopping friends and relatives from visiting or impeding staff from doing their job properly, then they’re clearly too high.’

Health trusts in England say parking charges are essential to stop people who are not patients, visitors or staff from leaving their cars at hospitals.

But at least 30 trusts in England made more than £ 1million each from fees last year.

Mr Bradshaw said it was ‘not a sensible use’ of NHS funding to subsidise car parking. He said: ‘Our priority is the safety and speed of healthcare – one of the reasons that in England waiting times are shorter.

‘Hospital car parking charges are decided locally to cover the cost of running and maintaining a car park. All trusts should have schemes to ensure that patients and carers who visit hospital regularly are not disadvantaged.’

The Department of Health said axing parking charges would be ‘contrary to the Government’s climate change objectives’.