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Parking situation

Posted By Jif56

"Parking situation"

About: Royal Victoria Hospital (Belfast)

(as a service user),

I had an appointment at ENT. I joined the queue for the car-park, as I knew the queue is horrendous leaving people late for their appointments. I saw people who were being driven to the hospital get out of cars to walk as it was quicker. I even saw staff having to walk. I got into the car-park and spent 15 minutes driving around trying to get a space. I was in time for my appointment but people were late for the clinic due to the horrendous queue. 

Quite honestly, this is totally unacceptable. I could clearly see people getting stressed with the long wait. 

I don't imagine I'm the only person to complain but my concern really is for elderly people and also emergencies.  

I do hope that something can be done to alleviate this terrible situation 

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Responses

Response from Michelle O'Halloran, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Michelle O'Halloran
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

Submitted on 11/11/2022 at 13:50
Published on Care Opinion at 14:25

Please accept our apologies for your recent carparking experience on the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) site. The Belfast Trust encourages staff to commute to work by public transport, walking, cycling, by motorbike or to car share. Despite this, the demand for carparking by staff exceeds the limited amount of carparking available on each site – particularly on the RVH site. Allocated carparking for staff reached capacity a number of years ago with many staff on a waiting list for carparking for up to 3 years. As a consequence, staff often park in the public carparks and pay the daily tariff and this impacts on spaces, especially in the main visitors carpark. This can add to the anxiety that many patients and their families may already be experiencing and leads to understandable levels of frustration. To ensure that available staff parking provision is targeted towards those in greatest need, the Trust recently agreed to apply carpark access criteria for staff. The pandemic delayed the rollout of the new criteria but the system has now gone live on the Belfast City Hospital site and will roll out to the Mater and RVH sites soon. This will result in more spaces being available for patients and their families.

The Trust also operate a free Park N Ride from Blacks Road to the RVH for staff and patients to try and alleviate some of the pressures of carparking on this site. Information on the times can be found on the Belfast Trust website.

I hope the above explains some of the measures being taken to improve parking for patients and their families.

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by Jif56 (a service user)

I refer to my recent comments. Actually I did only comment on some staff having to get our of their cars and walk while their colleagues parked but that was mentioned in passing. Due to the huge queue many people who were perhaps attending appointments or visiting friends and relatives also had to get out and walk leaving the driver to park.

Please don't think I was particularly mentioning the staff as that was just to highlight that everyone is affected by the dreadful parking situation at the RVH. Like I said I was in a queue for ages but made it to my appointment. Plus drove around for some time trying to find a space.

The carparking situation needs addressed for everyone.

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