Yahoo News Hospital staff 'sick with stress' over crippling parking fines racked up every week
Dozens of doctors, nurses and support workers have been left suffering high levels of stress and sickness after a NHS trust authorised a private car park operator to pursue them through the courts over unpaid fines.
Several members of staff at the Cardiff trust are understood to have gone off work with stress-related illnesses, off sick with stress, with many others anxious about how they will cope with paying multiple fines for parking at work while saving lives.
Medical and admin staff at University Hospital of Wales (UHW) face an estimated total bill of £12.8 million after a court ruled they were liable to pay £128 for each ticket they received, plus tens of thousands in court fees.
They are now preparing to appeal against the ruling.
Many employees have racked up three or four tickets a week and fear they will have to sell their homes or declare bankruptcy in order to pay the charges.
One young nurse said that despite being heavily pregnant she now feels she has to cycle to work as she is too scared to park on site because of the “ludicrously high fines”.
She told The Telegraph: “I love my job, we are a fiercely loyal and hardworking profession. All we want is to help people that are seriously unwell with life threatening illness.
“This unfair action has caused me to call into question why I even became a nurse as the people who employ me have clearly walked away and don't care.”
The parking crisis at UHW came after the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (UHB) last year authorised its car park operator Indigo to pursue the case against its own staff.
Hospital car parking fees were abolished in Scotland and Wales in 2008 unless external contracts were already in place and Indigo’s contract is not due to expire until March 2018.
In a letter seen by the Telegraph UHB said it “acknowledged and agreed” that Indigo was “entitled to pursue all outstanding parking charges, including, without limitation, through pursuing court action against infringers.”
A three day test case at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, brought against three “persistent offenders” who had more than 100 charges between them, resulted in a judge ruling against the staff.
The verdict was considered binding on a further 72 of their colleagues facing court action.
But the staff were represented in the case by lay campaigners with no legal background, such as Barry Beavis, a chip shop owner from Billericay, Essex, who had previously taken his own parking charge case to the Supreme Court in 2015.
They are set to appeal against the ruling after raising enough funding to instruct a solicitor.
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University Hospital of Wales (UHW) has only 1,800 parking spaces but as many as 8,000 staff are issued with parking permits, allowing them to park in designated zones for £1.05 a day.
But those spaces are often full by 6.40am, leaving employees, many whom are dashing to work to deal with serious cases, to park where they can.
One medical worker received ticket after rushing into work at 3am when a patient was having a heart attack.
He said: “I drive 11 miles, park, run up to the theatre, save the patient’s life. Stabilise the patient, return to car at 6am to find a parking ticket. Should I have cycled to work? Caught the bus? Scrounged for change and gotten a ticket? We do what’s best for our patients and get punished and ridiculed for doing so.”
For years, staff had ignored the tickets, believing they were not legally binding.
But in 2015, UHB told staff to pay any fines, saying they had been correctly issued and it did not intend to dispute them.
Last April, Indigo said it would cancel all parking charge notices up to the end of March 2016 as a "gesture of goodwill" and reduced the charge to £10 if paid within 14 days.
But the problem did not go away and more than 100,000 tickets are said to have been issued since then, amounting to a potential bill of almost £13 million.
One medical worker, who like the others asked not to be named, said her permit had been changed while she was on maternity leave and that she was given tickets while waiting for her new one to arrive.
“So, so many people are stressed and worrying about their financial futures,” she said. “It’s hundreds of staff who can't park in the right area due to volume of cars, but just abandon their cars as the patients and colleagues are more important.”
Staff say public transport to the hospital is simply not good enough, with a park and ride scheme launched this May finishing before most doctors and nurses shifts have ended.
UHB said proper parking enforcement was vital to keep traffic flowing and enable ambulances and other emergency vehicles safe access to the site.
Len Richards, chief executive of the health board, wrote to staff this week saying the trust recognised it was “deeply distressing” for those liable for costs
He said: “As a Health Board we take no comfort from our staff being involved in this legal process and we are consistently working to try and find alternative and sustainable modes of transport to the site. Our plea remains for staff to comply and help us try to find the solutions together.”
