"It was stressful and expensive!"

We're glad that you liked our new maternity department, but disappointed that you found parking at the Lister a poor experience. We wonder whether this is the first time you've come to the Lister because until the new car park opened, parking on site was at times impossible to find; Coreys Mill Lane - the road at the front of hospital - has always been busy, so this is not new.

What most people do not realise is the significant cost associated with providing parking on our hospital sites. The most recent figures, which are for 2010, show that this amounted to just over £1 million, which covers everything from maintenance and security through to the equivalent of rates that get paid back to the Government every year. We get no funding for this service, so we either cover the cost from other budgets or charge those using our car parks.

Like nearly all NHS hospitals across England, we do levy a charge for parking and the rates in our new multi-storey car park reflect those that were in place when the old pay and display system was used. There has been no change.

In the past one of the biggest complaints we had with the pay and display system was people had to guess how long they would be. This led to two, equally difficult, problems - those who underestimated and became very anxious whilst still in one of our hospitals and those who overestimated and ended up annoyed that they had overpaid for their stay. Now people pay just for the time they use – which is what people told us they wanted.

Finally your point about the car park's use - our figures show that it is being used by hundreds of people every day. Your comments may be based on the fact that there still lots of spaces free, even at the busiest times of the day. That's because the facility has been designed to accommodate the extra numbers of visitors and patients coming to the Lister as more inpatient and emergency services come up from the QEII over the next couple of years. If you like, we have built in extra capacity from the start.