Free parking

I had to go visit a friend in hospital last night and it made me think of a policy that would probably be a vote winner for any party that adopted it. It's quite simple - abolish car parking charges at hospitals.

I've been lucky and not had to visit hositals too regularly - last night was probably my first visit to one in over five years - so this is one thing that's slipped under the radar for me. The hospital I was at last night was charging around £1 an hour for parking, which is comparable to what NCP charge for parking in Birmingham City Centre and, while I can understand hospitals not wanting their car parks to be overrun by people using it for something else, preventing patients and their families from parking, is it really necessary to charge that much for parking when the hospital isn't in an area where parking is in high demand? It seems to me that this is a method being used to gather revenue for the hospital from people using the car park, many of whom can ill afford it.

The principle behind this is simple - the NHS is supposed to be free at the point of the use, and charging people to park there does come extremely close to charging someone to use the service. From what I can see, the charges for parking were not just for visitors but for people visiting A&E which must introudce a dilemma for patients. Suppose I've been able to drive myself or someone else to A&E, how long should I be paying for parking for? Do I have to treage myself or my friend to determine how long it'll take them to be seen and discharged so I don't end up paying for too little parking and getting clamped?

So, propose abolishing parking charges except when they're strictly necessary and I think it'll get votes. Not just because people will benefit from the move itself, but also because it declares an intent to stop what I suppose you could call 'stealth charging' in the NHS.