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SCRAPPING free parking for NHS staff is a “rebuff to the immense efforts” of healthcare workers during the pandemic, a doctors’ union charged today.
Ministers were urged to U-turn on plans to reintroduce parking fees for NHS staff in hospitals in England, a policy implemented on March 25 by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
The Department of Health has said the free parking will continue only for “key patient groups and NHS staff in certain circumstances” as the pandemic eases, according to the i newspaper.
The plans have been widely slammed by unions and MPs on both sides of the House.
British Medical Association council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said that reintroducing charges would be a “rebuff to the immense efforts of staff across the country and the sacrifices they have made to keep others safe.”
He said: “The BMA has always believed that it is unacceptable for staff who serve in our health service to be required to pay significant amounts of money to park their car in hospital grounds.
“This is even more salient as the nation recognises the immeasurable contribution of healthcare workers in fighting this pandemic.”
Other critics highlighted the irony in clapping for healthcare workers one day and then forcing them to pay to work the next.
Healthcare workers’ union Unison tweeted: “Not so much a clap, more a slap in the face for exhausted NHS staff who have gone above and beyond their duty during the coronavirus crisis and continue to do so.”
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “From clapping carers to clamping carers … Yesterday the Tories tried to blame care homes, today they take away free car parking for NHS staff.”
However former Tory cabinet minister Nicky Morgan today sparked confusion after she rejected the idea that a decision had yet been made about ending the support.
She told the BBC: “We’re all reacting to a decision that’s not even on the table, as far as I’m aware,” adding that “it does seem very strange given how hard our NHS and care workers have worked over the last few months.”
Health minister Edward Argar stated earlier this month that there had been no change yet to the policy but added that support for free parking for NHS staff “cannot continue indefinitely.”
