Free parking for NHS staff introduced during pandemic to end this week

Rachel Harrison from the GMB union branded the decision a ‘sick joke’

Health Secretary Sajid Javid (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Free parking for NHS staff introduced during the Covid pandemic will end this week, the health secretary has said.

Parking fees were waived for NHS staff working in hospitals in England – but Sajid Javid said this would end on Friday.

Defending the move, he said over 93% of NHS trusts that charge for car parking have now “implemented free parking for those in greatest need, including NHS staff working overnight.”

He added: “On behalf of the government, I would like to record my thanks to everyone who has worked tirelessly to keep people safe over the last two years and whose efforts have enabled us to move to the next stage of the Covid-19 response.”

Rachel Harrison, national officer for the GMB union, said: “Charging the NHS staff who’ve risked their lives during the pandemic to park at work is a sick joke.

“After the years of Tory cuts NHS trusts are struggling, we know.

“But scrabbling the money back off hard up workers is not the answer. The government must now legislate for free hospital staff parking once and for all.”

The government’s decision to scrap the charges during the pandemic followed pressure from campaigners.

More than 400,000 people signed a petition calling for the fees to be lifted in the “nation’s hour of need”.

At the time, petition organiser Anthony Gallagher welcomed the move but said fees and fines for NHS workers should be axed permanently.

The year before the pandemic struck, private firms pocketed £272 million from patients, families and NHS staff parking at hospital sites – up £46 million on the previous year.

The Conservative government’s 2019 manifesto promised to “end unfair hospital car parking charges by making parking free for those in greatest need.”

It said this included “disabled people, frequent outpatient attenders, parents of sick children staying overnight and staff working night shifts.”

The Department of Health and Social Care said the perk was “temporary” and introduced in July 2020 “for the duration of the pandemic”.

It said the scheme had cost around £130 million over the past two years.