Do we expect to get too much for free?

Because something has always been free should it always remain open to everyone no matter what?

Anyone who has driven to a hospital for appointments, to visit a patient or worked there knows how it smarts to be stung by parking charges – that’s if you even manage to find a space after multiple circuits of the car park, blood pressure escalating.

Worse still if you’re landed with a parking ticket for overstaying through no fault of your own or parking on a grass verge or in a non-designated space to avoid missing an appointment.

Everyone and their ferret have opinions about hospital parking charges, and most want it for free of any charge whatsoever.

It’s an outrage, many protest, that staff working tricky shifts, caring and saving lives, should have to pay to park at work.

But is it? Don’t most people have to pay to park near their workplace or if they park in town to go for a haircut, shopping or meet friends for a meal?

Should accessing health care be any different, just because we have those services for no charge?

Car parking, especially in towns and cities, is at a premium and free parking is a rare perk of the job for most workers.

Few public car parks are free too so should hospitals be any different for its users? 

Are we just too entitled to see that parking provides another stream of revenue for the hard-pressed NHS to fund activities that they might not otherwise.

The issue here isn’t should or shouldn’t there be charges, but how much?

Perhaps this is the point of objections – NHS care and treatment is free so parking there should be too and therefore any charges should be abolished.

However, very few free health services are available when and where you want them. 

We all have choices and, faced with the interminable waiting lists for appointments, treatment and surgery, people are choosing not to wait for the free treatment and “go private” paying for knee and hip replacements or GP appointments to get on with their lives. 

The same choices could be applied to parking – you might find a free space away from the hospital but have to pay to get close to the door.

It might not feel right – none of us want to pay for something that could be available free – but it is as it is.

What is offensive is the excessive and eye-watering exclusive city-centre car park-level charges on NHS sites. They are greedy and immoral for the sick, anxious and low paid to foot.

It feels like a covert tax on the ill, worried relatives and skilled staff who care for them, and that’s what winds people up.

A nominal charge that isn’t furiously policed with ticket-slapping happy superintendents is what is needed.

The 2019 Tory manifesto said: “We will end unfair hospital car parking charges by making parking free for those in greatest need, including disabled people, frequent outpatient attenders, parents of sick children staying overnight and staff working night shifts.

“This will eliminate costs for those in need, while making sure there are enough spaces for -everyone.”

A mighty almost £200million was forked out in car parking charges by hospital patients, visitors and staff in 2022, a sharp rise of 50 per cent.

Hospital managers clearly feel there is no choice but to see the car parks as money makers, with limited exceptions of blue badge holders or parents staying overnight with their ill children.

Car parks need to be maintained and run and should that come from money that could be used for care?

And, yes, parking costs are hidden charges for using a ‘free’ NHS and add to worries during a cost-of-living crisis, especially for frequent attenders for chemotherapy, radiotherapy, dialysis and other lifesaving treatments – but most hospitals offer discounts and flat rates for frequent attenders.

But the officious nasty side of policing this causes offence. More than 280,000 parking fines issued to people for parking in NHS car parks last year.

An investigation by Good Morning Britain found that 35,000 parking tickets were successfully overturned on appeal in hospital car parks in England last year.

People would be far more accepting too if charges were affordable and fair. 

A Bridget too far

Some things are best left in the past.

Bridget Jones should have been left in her 30s.

A fourth film is on its way with a widowed Bridget in her 50s with two kids sleeping with her 30-year-old toyboy. Yuck.

Unrealistic? Just a tad.

No woman in her 50s with two small children would have the energy let alone the inclination to dally with a millennial or Generation Y to overcome her bereavement.

A sad dragged out fourth film will simply devalue and cheapen what went before.

Not a star in stripes

Never one to attempt cool, I was quite chuffed to be what I thought ‘on trend’ with my new spring trainers.

Until son the older surreptitiously snatched a photo of my feet to send his girlfriend.

She replied immediately to the box-fresh white with three black stripes classis Adidas Sambas.

“Rishi!” 

Thinking I was embracing classic cool instantly became embarrassing naff because the prime minster had been photographed wearing the exact same trainers last Friday.

I imagine Adidas share price plummeted like my heart.