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We're sorry to hear that you're uphappy by the charges you face when visiting a relative at our Hospitals. We appreciate it's never nice to have to worry about these things on top of worrying about an ill family member. I hope the below however, explains a little bit more about your two main concerns mentioned:

0300 numbers allow organisations to have a single national point of contact, without consumers having to pay extra to call them and should cost no more than a national rate call to an 0116 number. More information about 0300 numbers can be found here http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2009/09/what-are-03-numbers/

Car park charges were introduced for staff and public at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1996. At the Leicester General and Glenfield Hospital car park charges for staff and public were introduced in 2007. Prior to the price increase in October 2011, the Trust subsidised car park and travel operations by £310,000 and invested approximately a further £250,000 per annum on infrastructure.

We monitor the charges to make sure we continue to provide parking that meets the needs of visitors and the national standards, including, the NHS Confederation recommendation that parking is ‘fair for all, not free for all’. Our daily, weekly, monthly and £25 Royal saver tickets continue to keep costs down for regular patients and prime carers.

We also increased the fee for staff car park permits and, although it is early days, we are on track to see the increase we originally predicted.

Although this information won't provide an answer to stopping the charges you face to park as a visitor at our Hospitals, I hope it does explain a little bit about why we have to charge and the time we invest in ensuring the charges are monitored and reviewed regularly.