Hansard

I, too, thank Paul Martin for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue. I appreciate that a review is under way. I have lodged motions in relation to Stobhill and other hospitals that are in a similar situation. The management of hospital car parks is undoubtedly a matter for the NHS, but it is clear that the advice given by Malcolm Chisholm during the previous session has been hijacked by some hospital boards, particularly NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, to justify the implementation of car parking charges. It is clear that the advice was never designed to justify the imposition of blanket charging across all hospitals within any health board area—which is what Greater Glasgow and Clyde is now doing.

The effect on NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde employees is that, even after the discounts that have been offered, the charge will be greater than the net salary increase that they will receive and that the health secretary was keen to promote as a single-phase payment. That is completely unfair and it means that the net earnings of health board employees throughout Scotland vary according to whether they work in an area in which the health board charges for car parking. For health workers at Stobhill, it means that their net earnings are less than those of health workers who do a similar job in an area where the health board does not charge for car parking. I do not see why nurses and health workers should be penalised for having to work unsocial hours and respond to emergencies.

It is worrying that NHS hospital consolidation in Greater Glasgow and Clyde will require people to travel even further. There is a suggestion in Glasgow that hospital car parking charges are essential because, otherwise, the traffic routes that support, for example, the Southern general, where Stobhill patients will go in future, will not be able to cope. That undermines the presumption of the original case.

I wrote to the cabinet secretary ahead of the announcement of a review, for which I naturally take full credit—I thank her for that. In her reply, she said that the NHS has a role to play in

"reducing the impact of motor-cars on the environment"

and that the board has an obligation

"to encourage the use of public transport".

I mulled that statement over, and asked myself why.

We all agree, as a general proposition, that congestion is something we want to discourage and that we want to reduce unnecessary use of motor cars, but if there is such a thing as unnecessary use of motor cars it begs the question what is necessary use. Hospital visits must fall into the category of justifiable and necessary use of the motor car. Even if public transport were available, we would want it to be as good as possible. Surely we want to encourage people who have a hospital appointment to get a lift with a family friend, and to encourage people to visit patients in hospital on dark evenings. The NHS should therefore have no part to play in reducing car use or making the sick feel guilty by penalising them for using their cars.

I have paid to park in a hospital car park. When I did, I had to anticipate how long I would be there, because the charge is not a flat fee. I have a vision of elderly patients scurrying around car parks in hospital gowns to feed the meter as they realise that they have been in the hospital for longer than they have paid for. The health board has not made clear what the penalties will be if people exceed their stay. The considerable threat of not anticipating correctly the length of a stay and ending up with a fine could prove to be true.

In her letter, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing said that she accepted

"that car parking charges are a legitimate response".

That is slightly different from what she said in opposition, which was:

"We have seen the introduction of many bad changes like the sky-high parking charges in our hospitals".

Brian Adam has referred to the ridiculous

"creeping commercialisation of the NHS",

but I have established that private hospitals do not charge for parking. It is ironic and peculiar that if people use a private hospital they do not pay to park, but if they use an NHS hospital, they do.

The review that is under way must reach a decisive result. The situation is wholly unfair and blanket charging is inappropriate. Stobhill is a perfect example of a hospital at which parking charges are not justified. I hope that the cabinet secretary's review will act to phase out charges.