Sheffield hospital parking: NHS staff at Northern General and Royal Hallamshire pay £1m to park for work

NHS England Figures shared by the Press Association reveal Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust earned £3.2 million in car parking fees from locations like the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General Hospital in the year to March.

Of this, £1 million was from parking fees paid by their own staff, leaving the remaining £2.2 million to come from patients and visitors.

The data shows the trust also spent £890,000 on parking services over the same period, meaning in total it made £2.3 million from parking.

It comes as new figures have revealed, across England, NHS trusts made a net revenue of £165.6m from parking charges in the same period. This was from a total of £242.8m in car parking fees, after spending £77.2m to run parking services.

This included £70.5m charged to NHS staff.

National secretary of the GMB union, Rachel Harrison, said NHS workers have suffered "rocketing workloads, chronic understaffing and the fallout from a global pandemic".

She said: "Health workers are on their knees – they need help and support. Charging them to park is kicking them while they are down."

The GMB is calling on the Government and NHS employers to scrap staff car parking charges.

The figures also show there were 4,360 available parking spaces across Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust sites.

Patricia Marquis, executive director for England of the Royal College of Nurses, said: "Nursing staff provide a vital public service and often work unsocial hours and in places where public transport is not always possible.

"They shouldn’t be forced to spend a significant portion of their wages just to park at work."

She added all staff should be able to access "safe, sustainable and affordable" transport, and urged employers and local authorities to work together on the issue.

NHS England said revenue from parking is put towards other services provided by trusts.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "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."

Meanwhile, Sheffield Children's Hospital actually lost £30,000 in parking services in the same period.

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The Trust took in £21,000 in car parking fees in the year to March - £490 from parking for staff, and the remaining £20,000 from patients and visitors.

However, the data shows the trust also spent £51,000 on parking services over the same period, meaning in total it made a loss on parking.

The Children’s Trust operates 292 parking spaces, less than a tenth of what Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has.

Andrew Jones, Director of Facilities at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our car parking income is for five hospitals which equates to many thousands of parking spaces used by over two million visitors several times a day by patients, visitors and staff.

“Whilst we recognise that car parking charges are an extra cost for staff and patients, we have to provide car parking and so if we don’t charge, then we would have to cover the costs from other budgets. This would potentially mean less for patient care services. Once maintenance and new development costs are covered, any surplus income we receive is always reinvested in the NHS here in Sheffield.

“We have 19,000 staff and so regrettably it is impossible to provide parking spaces for all staff. We do have a staff permit scheme and we try hard to keep costs to a minimum and have always offered free parking for a number of concessionary groups and discounted rates for longer stay patients.”