Seven NHS trusts earned more than £3 million in 2014/15 from charges, a further eight made more than £2 million a year while a further 32 earned more than £1 million a year.
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The figures, released after a Freedom of Information request which had 90 responses, showed how the total income from auto parking across England is estimated at £100 million.
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The trust featured in a national list revealing hospital trusts which earned more than £1m.
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Head of communications, Heather Edwards, said: “Although there are regular bus services to and from the hospital, we appreciate that many people want the convenience and speed of being able to park on site”.
The PA quotes Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association, who’s unsurprisingly outraged, and said: “It is a postcode lottery and a tax on sick people who sometimes struggle to pay”.
Iain Brodie, Facilities General Manager at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust, said: “We have kept our parking charges to a minimum and our prices are in line with other NHS Trusts, public sector organisations and off-street auto parks in Wakefield and North Kirklees”.
Craig Black, executive director of resources at West Suffolk Hospital added: “All of the money we receive from auto parking is reinvested into patient care, and is the equivalent of the cost of running a ward for a year”.
Others said their size and the fact that they served busy neighbourhoods meant they took more in revenue.
Watford MP Richard Harrington Richard said: “Patients and their families and NHS staff shouldn’t have to deal with added stress from unfair parking charges”.
Earlier this year Sir Peter Morris, former Oxford Nuffield Professor of Surgery and past president of the Royal College of Surgeons, wrote to the John Radcliffe to say the parking situation was “a disgraceful chaos”.
Parking at Pennine Acute hospitals is charged at £1 for an hour, £2 for up to two hours, £3 for up to six hours, £6 for 12 hours, and £8 for 24 hours.
“We try to keep the costs of parking as low as possible, and our charges haven’t gone up for five years”.
“On the rare occasions where sudden sickness has affected nursing levels, we have been able to move staff to support the depletion by identifying wards with lower patient numbers and move people across”.
The Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust took £3,413,413 in 2014-15. “We think it should be free or a very minimal charge but not the sort of fee that it is at the moment”.
The hospital announced in August that it would refund numerous fines, while the cameras that monitor number plates in the auto park remain switched off while work is undertaken to improve signage.
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There are no easy answers – unless we are all willing to pay more tax directly – but is important for the public to see that income from auto parking charges is becoming an increasingly important part of the equation when it comes to balancing the public sector books.
