New Sick Kids parking charges

S2M-5414# Mike Pringle: Fair Parking for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh—That the Parliament welcomes the plan to build a new hospital for sick children alongside the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France in south Edinburgh;
notes that parking costs only 70p per hour and is free in the evening and at weekends near the current Royal Hospital for Sick Children site in Sciennes but that parking at the Royal Infirmary is almost £1.20 per hour, up to a maximum of £10 per day, and that this applies for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
and believes that bus services to the Little France area should be improved from all parts of the city and that NHS Lothian should guarantee that parking at any new hospital will not cost any more than the current site and that the mistakes that were made in respect of fixing parking charges at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh are not made in planning the new sick children’s hospital.

Introduction
One year ago today this Parliament held the Stage one debate on my Bill to Abolish NHS Prescription Charges.
Today we debate the case for other charges for accessing our health service – car parking charges for visitors patients and staff.

I believe in principle that access to our NHS should be universally free.

I note in the briefing which SPICE helpfully provided for this debate that
1 The decision on whether or not to have car parking charges is a matter for local NHS boards
2 Car parking charges should not be introduced as a means of generating income

However the Executive somewhat spoil/compromise the clarity of that directive by allowing income generating schemes if it is to
-cover the costs of providing parking facilities,
-cover the cost of providing new car parking facilities
-better manage existing car parking facilities, in other words acts as a disincentive to unauthorised users.

Facts
Three quarter of hospitals in UK now charge for parking
Charges in RIE cause people to avoid paying £10 per day and park in the adjacent schemes in the Inch and in Moredun causing difficulties for many residents in those areas
Charges act as a disincentive to staff coming to work in the NHS
Staff who are there every day and who work in one of the ‘low pay industries ‘ unfortunately. It filled me with horror to hear that low paid NHS staff at the new RIE were being charged £10 per dauy to park their carr at work. NO wonder they were parking instead in my scheme in the Inch to save £50 /week.

Sick Kids Hospital to Little France
I welcome the plans for a new Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh.
I‘also welcome it being at Little France. In fact when I hear that it is now nearer me in the Inch than Kenny McAskill and Mike Pringle in Sciennes I suggest the hospital is clearly moving to the left.
Whilst I welcome all that I certainly do not believe it should be a PFI project.
The RIE PFI has been a disaster for patients in the Lothians. I note the recent study by Professor Allyson Pollock
-the £228m cost of PFI RIE hospital will cost NHS £1bn over four times as much over the 30 years of contract
-profits made by the RBOS , Balfour Beatty , Morrison Construction and ‘Infrastructure Investors’ all comes out of NHS and into pockets of big businesses/shareholders when it oufght to be going into front line patient care
-LHB has the biggest proportion of its income going to PFI projects of by any Board in Scotland, and by a distance.

Pay Tribute to the Staff at the Sick Kids
In any debate in this Parliament about the Edinburgh Sick Kids I would always want top pay tribute to the tremendous care they provide for ouy youngsters.
They looked after my two young kids superbly when I had cause to visit.

Must also add that the latest stats show that perhaps as many as one in five youngsters admitted show signs of malnourishment, for me an appalling figure and cause enough to highlight the need for free school meals for all of them.

The motion in front of us tonight for me begs the question whether we should have car parking charges at the new site at all, not just whether they should be at the level they are at the existing Sciennes site on the Meadows.
I have to say that Mike Pringle could easily and rationally argue that since the new site is not in the middle of a residential area but on the outskirts of town and not under pressure from other road users that it should better utilise the chance to abolish the charges altogether in line with the essence of the Executives earlier views about not using the car parking charges as a way to generate more income.

Better Bus Services to Little France
I do agree with him on the need for better bus services out to Little France for the new sick kids, especially as we know that a great proportion of the youngsters who will unfortunately fall ill will come from families and backgrounds which are unlikely to have a car or access to one.
The bus is therefore an even more vital service for them taking kids there and for visiting their youngsters day after day.

Conclusion
I call on Lothian Health Board to scrap car parking charges at the new Sick Kids out at Little France and all the charges at our other hospitals for that matter.
ENDS