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There was not a space to be had

Posted By listentm38

"There was not a space to be had"

About: University Hospital Wishaw / Outpatients

(as a service user),

I had to attend Wishaw General this morning for an appointment for my infant son, accompanied by my mother. The appointment was just before 10am so we arrived at 9am to allow time for parking and getting to his appointment.

Had my mother not been with me, we would have missed our appointment. There was not a space to be had. My mother is the holder of a disabled badge and they were all full also; many not having a badge displayed. She dropped us at the main entrance and was still circling the car parks; both front and back in an attempt to get parked after our appointment.

How early are we expected to arrive to get parked for an appointment? What's the grace period for appointments if they are missed due to parking?

I think it's a bit ridiculous that cars are stickered for parking, where they can, in an effort to get into the hospital rather than miss their appointment. This would have been a very stressful experience had my mother not taken me and we would have missed a very important appointment, despite arriving almost an hour early.

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Responses

Response from Sam Hannah, General Manager, Soft Services, NHS Lanarkshire 6 days ago
Sam Hannah
General Manager, Soft Services,
NHS Lanarkshire

Submitted on 28/10/2025 at 13:20
Published on Care Opinion at 13:20

Dear listentm38,

I am really sorry to hear that you almost missed your appointment.

The hospital is a training hospital and on many days there are additional staff come to site for training held within the education suite, which means there are a lot more vehicles on site than normal. As you will be aware there are also a number of clinics held in the hospital departments on any given day

I would imagine as well as clinics it was probably a training day as well on the day of your appointment.

We have two car park attendants employed from 9.30am until 3pm,but due to the high traffic usage of the site it is impossible for them to cover every area of the site.

They do their best to ensure disabled spaces are being used by disabled badge holders.

Cars are stickered to notify users that they are causing obstruction, this could be obstruction to pedestrians wheelchair users or other road users. Cars can be abandoned in areas that cause serious obstruction to Emergency vehicle arrival to the hospital.

This is probably not the reply you wanted, but we try and keep traffic flow and parking issues on site to a minimum under difficult circumstances.

I will also raise your concerns at our next senior management team meeting.

Once again apologies for your stressful visit.

Best Wishes,

Sam

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