Here’s a list of NHS trusts which have put up hospital parking charges in past two years
A total of 37 NHS trusts increased car parking charges at some point in the two years to March 2024.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “NHS trusts – most of whom are under huge financial pressure – just couldn’t afford to maintain car parks without charging people to use them.
“The last thing trusts want to do is have to divert money away from patient services.
“City centre and urban hospital car parks where spaces are in great demand are a particular challenge.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said in a statement to PA: “Hospital car park charges are the responsibility of individual NHS trusts, however any charges must be reasonable and in line with the local area.
“Free parking is available for all NHS staff who work overnight.”
Here’s a list of the NHS trusts where the charges have increased, based on figures obtained by the Press Association following a Freedom of Information request. Not all trusts reported the figures in the same way.
Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Charges were increased from 1 February 2023. Up to 20 minutes remained free, while stays of up to two hours, two to three hours, three to four hours and four to five hours all increased by 50p to £4.50, £5.50, £6.50 and £7.50 respectively.
Stays of five to six hours and the weekly rate remained the same.
Charges for stays of more than six hours increased by £1 to £10.
File pic: PA
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust
Charges were increased from 1 February 2023. Up to 20 minutes remained free, with charges for up to two hours, two to three hours, three to four hours and four to five hours increasing by 50p to £4.50, £5.50, £6.50 and £7.50 respectively.
The day rate of more than six hours increased by £1 to £10. Tariffs for five to six hours remained the same (£8), as did the weekly rate (£25).
Barts Health NHS Trust
Tariffs were increased for patients and visitors during the period at Newham Hospital only.
Up to one hour was a new charge at £2.
Up to three hours increased by 70p to £3.70, while up to six hours increased by £1 to £7.
Charges for an eight-hour stay and up to 24 hours remained the same at £8 and £16.50 respectively.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased prices on 1 July 2023. Stays of two hours, two to three hours and three to six hours all increased by 20p to £2.70, £3.20 and £4.20 respectively. Six to 24 hours increased by 30p to £6.30.
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased primary care tariffs and charges at Ipswich Hospital in August 2022, followed by Colchester Hospital in January 2023.
Up to 30 minutes at both hospitals remained free, although charges for one, two and four hours increased by 20p, 30p and 50p respectively to £2.20, £3.30 and £4.50.
There was a £5.50 charge introduced for five hours and a £10 charge for 24 hours. The price of an eight-hour stay increased to £6.50 from £5.
However, a five-day pass was cheaper at £12, down from £15, while a seven-day pass was £4 cheaper at £14.
In primary care, one hour was free, with two hours costing 30p more at £3.30.
A stay of four hours increased by 50p to £4.50, eight hours was £1.50 more at £6.50 and 24 hours was £2 more at £12.
A five-day pass was £1 dearer at £16, although the price of a seven-day pass remained the same at £18.
East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
Tariffs were increased from January 2024:
Up to one hour – Up by 20p to £2
One to two hours – Up by 20p to £3.60
Two to three hours – Up by 25p to £5.20
Three to four hours – Up by 35p to £7
Four to five hours – Up by 40p to £8.50
Five to six hours – Up by £1 to £10.2
Six to 12 hours – Up by £1.10 to £11.80
Twelve to 24 hours – Up by 85p to £18.30
👉 Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
In 2022/23, the trust increased charges for up to two hours from £3.30 to £3.50.
In 2023/24, the tariff for up to two hours increased to £3.80, while three to four hours went up from £5.50 to £6 and a four to five-hour stay increased from £6.50 to £7.
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Up to 20 minutes remained free, with the charge for up to one hour increased from £1.10 to £1.50 in 2023/24. Elsewhere:
One to two hours – up by 80p to £3
Two to three hours – up by £1.20 to £4.50
Three to four hours – up by £1.60 to £6
Four to five hours – up £2 to £7.50
Five to six hours – up £2.20 to £10
After 6pm, charges for up to two hours increased by 40p to £1.50, while more than two hours is £1 dearer at £3.
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
There was a change in durations and charges from 1 December 2022.
Up to 30 minutes remained free, while tariffs for up to one hour increased by 20p to £2.
The trust stopped charging on the half hour, instead charging on the hour. For example, there was no longer a £2.80 charge for one hour 30 minutes.
The tariff changed to one to two hours at a cost of £3. Elsewhere, the £10 eight-to-24-hour stay changed to 12 to 24 hours at a cost of £16.
Read more from Sky News:
William and Kate reveal Christmas card
Inside the depraved mind of Dominique Pelicot
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased its prices for visitors by 3.9%, which it said was in line with inflation.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
The trust increased the price of staff permits as well as tariffs for visitors.
The price of a standard £30 staff permit, for example, went up by 2.3% to £32.24.
Hourly charges were also increased across its sites, including Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s University Hospital.
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust
Hourly tariffs were increased by a total of 2.6%, while concessions, including weekly passes, went up by 1.0%. There was no increase to charges for patients having chemotherapy.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust
Prices were increased from 2023. Up to 30 minutes remained free, with a charge of £2.50 introduced for 30 minutes to one hour.
Elsewhere, stays of two to four hours, four to six hours and six to eight hours previously cost £4, £6 and £8 respectively, but charges for stays of two to three hours (£4), three to four hours (£5), four to five hours (£6), five to six hours (£7) and six to seven hours (£8) were introduced.
The trust previously charged £10 for stays of eight to 10 hours. Now, a stay of seven to 10 hours costs £10, while 10 to 16 hours is £12 and 16 to 24 hours is £15.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
The trust said it aligned its car parking tariffs for patients and visitors across all its hospital sites following the reinstatement of parking charges.
Medway NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased charges for stays of up to two hours, two to three hours, three to four hours and four to five hours by 20p, 30p, 40p and 50p respectively to £2.20, £3.30, £4.40 and £5.50.
Stays of between five and 24 hours remained the same at £10.
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Charges did not increase for patients during the period.
However, the trust did change its staff charging structure, meaning some worker tariffs increased and others were reduced. Band seven staff and above were charged more for permits.
Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
According to its disclosure log, the trust increased tariffs.
The charge for 15 minutes to one hour went up by 10p to £2.80, a three-hour stay increased by 20p to £3.70, up to six hours went up by 20p to £5, up to eight hours increased by 20p to £5.50, while up to 24 hours increased by 40p to £11.
A weekly ticket is now £21, up from £20, and a lost ticket costs £11, up from £10.60.
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased the tariff at its long-stay car park at the University Hospital of North Tees from 1 December 2023. The rate had previously been £2 per 14 hours and was increased to £2.50 per 14 hours.
All other parking rates remained unchanged from 2022/23 to 2023/24.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
NHS braced for ‘quad-demic’
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust
Tariffs increased by 20p per hourly session at Hinchingbrooke Hospital and Peterborough City Hospital, but charges were not increased at Stamford and Rutland Hospital.
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased tariffs for staff and patients during the period.
For the public, up to one hour went from £2.40 to £2.70, one to two hours increased from £3.90 to £4.40, two to four hours went up from £4.40 to £5 and more than four hours increased from £4.90 to £5.50.
Off-site barrier charges for staff increased from £8.50 to £9.60, while off-site non-barrier charges increased from £9.45 to £10.60. The charge for on-site barrier car parks went up from £25.50 to £28.40.
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased tariffs for patients and visitors at John Radcliffe Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Churchill Hospital on 1 August 2023.
Up to 30 minutes remained free, although 30 minutes to one hour increased from £1.40 to £2.20.
A one to two-hour stay was 10p cheaper at £2.70, as well as a two to three-hour stay which went from £4.20 to £3.70.
Three to four hours increased from £5.60 to £6.20 and the cost for more than four hours went up by £1 to £8. Stays between 8pm and 8am were previously free but now cost £2.
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
According to the trust, staff are charged 1.25% when they park on site. It added that a 10% increase in 2023 “was based on the fact that the patient tariff had not been increased for four years” and therefore “10% was a fair increase based on inflation”.
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
The trust increased the costs of its staff permits and parking charges for visitors.
A multi-site pass and a pass for the Royal Free Hospital increased from £94.28 to £99.84 per month for full-time staff from 1 April 2023. Part-time staff are charged £49.82, up from £47.14.
Tariffs for off-peak and weekend parking also increased slightly.
The staff permit tariff at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals is charged based on a percentage of salary.
These percentages increased from 0.84% to 0.89% for full-time staff and 0.42% to 0.45% for part-time staff at both sites.
For patients, hourly charges were increased across all three hospitals from 1 December 2023.
Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust
One hour £3.70 increased to £3.90
Two hours £4.70 increased to £4.90
Three hours £5.30 increased to £5.60
Four hours £5.80 increased to £6.10
Six hours £6.80 increased to £7.10
Twenty-four hours £9.80 increased to £10.30
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
Charges were increased by 4%.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
Tariffs for patients and visitors increased on 15 January 2024.
Stays of up to two hours, two to three hours, three to six hours and six to 10 hours all increased by 50p each to £5, £6, £7, and £8 respectively.
Stays of between 10 and 24 hours increased from £6 to £13.
For staff, charges were reintroduced on 1 June 2023 and are banded by annual salary.
Those earning £23,000 or below pay 50p a day, while those on between £23,500 and £47,600 pay £1.25 a day. Workers on the highest salaries of £48,000 or above pay £1.80 a day.
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Tariffs were increased in October 2022. Up to 30 minutes is free, up from 15 minutes, although charges for up to one hour increased from £1.20 to £2.
One to two hours increased from £2.40 to £4, two to three hours increased from £3.60 to £6 and three to four hours increased from £4.80 to £8.
A standard tariff for four to five hours is £12, up from £6, but will cost patients £8. A standard charge is £18 for five to 24 hours, but is £8 for patients. Previously, the standard charge for five to six hours and six to 24 hours was £7.20.
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Stays of less than 15 minutes remained free but there was a 20p increase for stays of up to one hour, one to two hours, two to three hours and four to five hours.
Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust
The trust changed its prices for patients and visitors from November 2023.
Up to 30 minutes – previously 20 minutes – was now free, with up to one hour costing £1.50. The price for two hours increased from £2.50 to £2.70, three hours was now £3.90, up from £3.50, and four hours cost £4.80, up from £4.50.
The price for stays of five hours and six hours remained the same. The charge for between seven and 24 hours was £15, with the £10.50 tariff for eight hours no longer available.
University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust
The trust upped charges for its short and long-stay car parks from September 2023.
At the short stay, up to one hour increased by 20p, stays of up to two and three hours increased by 40p to £4.90 and £5.90 respectively, while up to four hours increased by 50p to £7.
Stays of up to five hours increased from £7.50 to £8.10, and six hours went from £8.50 to £9.20.
Stays of between six and 12 hours increased by £1 to £14 and between 12 and 24 hours is now £17.30, up from £16.
At the long-stay sites, there was no change to the charge for seven days. Stays of 14 days increased from £38.50 to £41.60 and 30 days was now £59.40, up from £55.
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust
Up to 40 minutes was free, while up to two hours cost £3.50. The trust previously charged £1.80 for up to one hour and £3.40 for one to two hours.
A two to four hour stay was now £6, up 20p, while four to six hours increased by 20p to £7.30.
A six to eight-hour stay remained the same at £12 while eight to 24 hours went up by £1 to £16.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
Tariffs were increased at University Hospital in Coventry and Hospital of St Cross in Rugby.
At University Hospital up to 10 minutes remained free. Up to one hour increased by 40p to £3.60, two hours went from £4.40 to £5, three hours increased by 70p to £5.70 and four hours went up by 80p to £6.80.
​​​​​​Stays of five hours increased by £1.10 to £8.90, up to six hours is £11, up from £9.70 and a 24-hour stay increased from £11 to £12.50.
At Hospital of St Cross, up to 30 minutes remained free. Up to three hours increased by 30p to £2.30, while up to five hours increased from £4.80 to £5.50. The tariff for up to 24 hours was now £9.70, up from £8.50.
University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust
The price of a two-hour stay increased by 40p, while stays of three, four and six hours increased by 30p, 40p and 20p respectively. There was no change to prices for a 24-hour stay, although overnight – between 6pm and 7am – increased by £1.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
350% increase in hospital flu cases
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
In 2023/34, the trust increased parking for up to one hour to £3.30 from £3.
One to two hours increased from £4 to £4.30, two to three hours increased from £4.50 to £4.80, three to four hours increased from £5 to £5.80, and four to five hours increased from £5.50 to £5.80.
There was no change to charges for 5-6 hours, 6-7 hours, 7-8 hours, 8-9 hours, 9-10 hours, 10-11 hours, 11-12 hours, 12-24 hours, or a weekly pass.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
One hour – up by 30p to £3.30
Two hours – up by 40p to £4.40
Three hours – up by 50p to £5.50
Four hours – up by 60p to £6.60
Five hours – up by 65p to £7.15
Six hours – up by 75p to £8.25
Eight hours – up by 85p to £9.35
Twenty-four hours – up by 90p to £9.90
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust
Charges increased at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Leigh Infirmary and the Freckleton Street multi-storey in November 2022.
Drop-offs and up to 30 minutes remained free, stays of up to two hours increased by 30p to £3.30, two to four hours and four to 24 hours increased by 50p to £5.50 and £7 respectively.
Charges at Wrightington Hospital and the Thomas Linacre Centre also increased in November 2022.
Drop-offs at up to 30 minutes remained free, while stays of up to one hour and one to two hours increased by 30p each to £2 and £3.
Two to four hours and four to 24 hours increased by 50p each to £5.50 and £7.
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The trust said charges were brought in line with nearby council car parks at its York, Scarborough and Bridlington sites as part of the installation of automatic number plate registrations in April 2023.
In York, up to one hour increased by 30p to £2.50, with a 60p increase for two hours (£5), a £1.10 increase for three hours (£7.50) and a 20p increase for four hours to £9. All-day passes increased by 10p to £10.
In Scarborough, one hour increased by 25p to £1.45, two hours increased by 40p to £2.90, three hours went from £3.50 to £4.35 and four hours increased from £4.50 to £5.80. An all-day pass increased by £1.20 to £7.20.
In Bridlington, stays of up to an hour were 20p cheaper at £1. Stays of two, three and four hours remained the same and an all-day pass was made 60p cheaper at £5.40.
Care workers will no longer be recruited from abroad under plans to “significantly” bring down net migration, the home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme the government will close the care worker visa route as part of new restrictions which aim to cut the number of low-skilled foreign workers by about 50,000 this year.
Politics live: Govt launches crackdown on migration
She said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.
“Also, we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment”.
The move comes ahead of the Immigration White Paper to be laid out this week, which will give more details on the government’s reforms.
Care England, a charity which represents independent care services, described Ms Cooper’s comments as a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector” and said the government “is kicking us while we’re already down”.
Its chief executive Martin Green said international recruitment is a “lifeline” and there are “mounting vacancies” in the sector.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Reform: Immigration ‘should be frozen’
Cooper refuses to give immigration target
Ministers have already announced changes to the skilled visa threshold to require a graduate qualification and higher salary.
Ms Cooper told Trevor Phillips that this – along with the care worker restrictions – will result in a reduction “probably in the region of up to 50,000 low-skilled worker visas in the course of this year alone”.
However, she refused to give a wider target on the amount the government wants to see net migration come down by overall, only saying that it needs to come down “substantially”.
Ms Cooper said the Conservatives repeatedly set targets they couldn’t meet and her plan was about “restoring credibility and trust”.
She said: “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut and we saw low-skilled migration in particular, hugely go up at the same time as UK residents in work or in training fell. That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Care companies say they can’t carry on after NI hike
The government is under pressure after it’s drubbing at the local elections, when Reform UK took control of 10 councils in England.
Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said the party’s strong performance was because people are angry about both legal and illegal immigration and called for immigration to be “frozen”.
He told Trevor Phillips: “The reality is that we’ve just won by an absolute landslide – the elections Thursday last week – because people are raging, furious, about the levels of both illegal and legal immigration in this country.
“We need to freeze immigration because the way to get our economy going is to freeze immigration, get wages up for British workers, train our own people, get our own people who are economically inactive back into work.”
Net migration – the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country – soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020.
It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024.
According to the Home Office, the number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas increased from 31,800 in 2021 to 145,823 in 2023, with the rise primarily due to an increase in South Asian and Sub-Saharan African nationals coming to work as care workers.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sky News investigates UK care homes
The number decreased significantly in 2024 to 27,174 – due to measures introduced by the Tories and greater compliance activity, the government said.
The crackdown is likely to cause concern in the care sector, which has long warned that low wages are driving a recruitment crisis and is now also being hit by the rise in employer National Insurance.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Cooper said there are around 10,000 people in the UK who came on care worker visas for jobs that didn’t exist and “care companies should recruit from that pool”.
“They came in good faith but there were no proper checks, they were badly exploited,” she said.
👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈
Nadra Ahmed, of the National Care Association, told Sky News this was a “scandal of the Home Office’s own making”, with care workers allowed to come to the UK “legitimately but with spurious contracts from profiteers preying on an already fragile sector”.
She added: “Understandably, many of those who are displaced have a preference of which part of the sector they work in or are qualified to do so, based on the promises made to them.
“Our preference would always be to recruit from within our domestic options but sadly we are not able to generate enough interest in social care when the funding remains a barrier to ensure that pay adequately rewards the skills and expertise of our workforce.”
UK
Labour’s shift on migration may assuage voters’ concerns – but risks harming struggling care sector
Labour and the Conservatives have been left reeling from Reform UK’s rampant success at the local elections.
And it seems both have taken a clear message from the insurgent party’s signature attitude towards migration.
Politics live: Care homes face ban on overseas recruitment
Polls regularly show the issue is a top concern for voters. While stopping the boats driving illegal migration is proving as difficult for Labour as it was for the Tories – the government has the levers to control legal migration much more directly.
This week, Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have decided it’s time to pull them, with their long-awaited white paper due to be published on Monday. But the trade offs involved in reforming the system certainly aren’t without controversy.
Speaking to Sky’s Sir Trevor Phillips to sell her plans to reduce visa numbers, the home secretary repeatedly talked about “restoring control”.
It’s no coincidence to hear her invoking the language of Brexit – highlighting the fact it was Boris Johnson who presided over the spiralling increase in migration after the vote to leave the European Union – and attempting to court the voters who believed doing so would close the borders to the influx of overseas workers.
“It’s about restoring control and order,” she said. “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut…
“That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”
The home office plan is to link the reduction in overseas workers with government efforts to get the economically inactive back into work. In future, only those with degree-level qualifications will be eligible for skilled worker visas.
Employers who want to employ lower-skilled workers, on a temporary basis, will have to demonstrate they are training and recruiting UK workers as well.
The home secretary says 180 occupations will be removed from the shortage list, with the shortfall filled by training schemes to fill the gaps with home-grown workers. Questions abound about how training schemes will marry up with immediate business needs now.
But it’s the closure of the specific care worker visa which is leading to the loudest alarm bells thus far.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Reform: Immigration ‘should be frozen’
Many in the sector are desperately worried about pre-existing staffing shortfalls, unconvinced by government advice to recruit from a pool of 10,000 workers already in the UK on care visas.
Professor Martin Green, of Care England, said: “This is a crushing blow to an already fragile sector. The government is kicking us while we’re already down.”
But the government is determined to try and wean the economy off its dependence on overseas labour.
The increase in net migration is staggering. Before Brexit, the highest figure was 329,000, in the year up to June 2015.
But by June 2023, the annual number had soared to 906,000. While last year that figure fell to 728,000, following restrictions on dependents on care and student visas – the number is still strikingly high.
Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have decided there’s no room for evasion and have regularly issued dramatic apologies for the decisions of the past.
“The last government,” said Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on Sunday, as if he had no part of it, “made some very serious mistakes with immigration. They allowed it to be far, far too high…that was a huge mistake.”
But Mr Philp is characteristically full of criticism of Labour’s “failure” on the “radical reforms” needed.
He wants to see parliament voting for an annual cap on numbers, although hasn’t specified what that would be.
👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈
Ms Cooper says migration targets have no credibility after years of Tory failures – but also acknowledged that she wants the numbers to fall “substantially” and “significantly” below 500,000.
Read More:
The ‘tricky balancing act’ facing Starmer over US trade deal
Chancellor insists Labour rebels ‘know the welfare system needs reform’
She claims the skilled worker visa changes will lead to 50,000 fewer visas being issued this year alone – a small proportion of that overall too, but a quick result all the same.
Will it be enough?
Reform UK are clearly delighted to be directing the government’s policy agenda.
Deputy leader Richard Tice told Sir Trevor “the Labour Party is talking the talk. Will they actually walk the walk? I actually think the people are voting for us because they know that we mean it.”
But the policy is a risk.
Assuaging voters’ concerns on migration could mean taking a serious hit to an already anaemic economy and struggling care sector. Not to mention the longer-term political decision to move the party firmly to the right.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway