Hospital faces car park cash blow

Hospital management said they were considering a replacement car park

Cash losses from the closure of a Nottingham hospital car park will not affect services, officials have said.

The multi-storey car park Queen's Medical Centre was closed last week after a survey found problems with its concrete structure.

Its 750 spaces generated more than £1m, which was mainly spent on security.

Patients are now being charged to use the smaller staff car park but officials said the funding gap would be absorbed into the annual £600m budget.

Hospital management said they were looking at all options for car parking and had laid on more buses from facilities at the City Hospital.

Safe environment

Some spaces were being found for staff at other local government buildings.

Peter Homa, chief executive at the QMC, said: "It is a most unwelcome situation but the hospital is on a firm financial footing and this will not affect services in any way."

But he rejected the suggestion that parking charges should be waived.

"The money from the car parks is invested in security and everyone benefits from the very strong security situation on both sites.

"We invest about £1.8m a year on this security and CCTV system to provide as safe an environment as possible," he said.

He added that "serious and urgent consideration" was being given to the question of whether to build a new car park.