"Parking fee at queens is outrageous"

I appreciate no-one really wants to pay for parking, particularly for a visit to hospital, which is not somewhere people go by choice. However, it would be wrong to use money that could be used for patient care to pay for people to park at the hospital. We have limited parking, for both patients and staff, and unless we charged, the car park would be full from early in the morning with staff and commuters as well as patients, meaning that patients and visitors would not be able to park, even for emergencies. A lot of people don’t have to pay for their parking with us, including people with disabilities, people having cancer treatment, people having a baby, visitors of patients having end-of-life care or who are critically ill and parents of children staying in hospital. Our charges are in line with what the local council charge for their car parks next door too. We are also encouraging staff and patients and visitors who don’t have mobility problems to travel by public transport wherever possible, to free up parking for people who can’t use public transport. Over the last two years, we have campaigned to double the number of bus routes serving Queen’s and we are working on further improvements. Jackie Doyle Director of Estates