Free parking for hospital workers to end on Friday

Free parking for NHS staff working in hospitals in England will end on Friday after being waived during the Covid crisis, Sajid Javid has said.

The health secretary flagged up the rule change in an update to workers on the pandemic.

He added: ‘However, over 93% of NHS trusts that charge for car parking have implemented free parking for those in greatest need, including NHS staff working overnight.’

Mr Javid also praised staff, saying: ‘On behalf of the government, I would like to record my thanks to everyone who has worked tirelessly to keep people safe over the last two years and whose efforts have enabled us to move to the next stage of the Covid-19 response.’

The GMB union criticised the return of the fees, which were removed to help staff travel in to work safely amid the crisis.

National officer Rachel Harrison said: ‘Charging the NHS staff who’ve risked their lives during the pandemic to park at work is a sick joke.

‘After the years of Tory cuts NHS trusts are struggling, we know.

‘But scrabbling the money back off hard up workers is not the answer.

‘The government must now legislate for free hospital staff parking once and for all.’

Meanwhile, the government was told to ‘get a grip’ of personal protective equipment after more than half of ‘VIP lane’ contracts provided some stock not suitable for the front line.

More than £700 million has been spent to store PPE and the health department has an estimated 3.9 billion unnecessary items, found the National Audit Office. Some 3.6 billion pieces of equipment were unsuitable.

The department said ‘too much PPE was preferable to too little’. But Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier urged it to ‘get a grip of its PPE stocks’.

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