Hospital parking charge protests

Hospital union members have been protesting in Coventry city centre against NHS hospital parking fees.

Staff from Walsgrave Hospital and Rugby's Hospital of St Cross marched in Bull Yard for equality with Scotland where charges will end on 31 December.

Unison said the move would also bring England in line with Wales where most NHS parking would be free by 2011.

The city's health trust said under the hospital's Private Finance Initiative terms it had to charge for parking.

Patients first

Martin Lee, chief executive of the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW), said: "As a hospital trust we have very little choice."

He said the trust received no income from its car parks and funded parking concessions for its staff and people on low incomes.

He said: "We can either subsidise patient and visitor car parking from healthcare budgets to the tune of almost £2m a year or, alternatively, ask people who use the car parks to pay for them and use our limited budgets where it is needed most, on the 500,000 patients we treat each year. "

It costs £9 for members of the public to park all day at UHCW.

Unison started its campaign in Rugby last week and said it had collected more than 1,000 signatures in favour of ending the parking charges.