Nurses lose out in parking row

DOCTORS and nurses will be forced to swop cars for public transport as hospital bosses cut the number of staff parking permits.

Employees were asked to fill in questionnaires about how far away they live, access to public transport and shift patterns in a bid to determine those most in need of a permit.

Barry Waterhouse is travel and access manager at Pennine Acute Trust which runs the Royal Oldham Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary, North Manchester General and Fairfield General in Bury.

He said: “We had to establish a fair way of deciding who most needed a parking permit to use the 3,800 spaces available at the hospitals.

“Our aim is to make parking easier for patients and visitors, so it will mainly be day staff who are affected.

“In the past, anyone working at the hospital could apply for a permit, but now staff will be scored to see who needs one the most.

“At the Royal Oldham Hospital we are hoping to secure 500 extra parking spaces at Oldham Athletic for staff. We want to help patients and visitors park as near as possible.”

David Bernasconi, associate branch secretary for UNISON at the Royal Oldham Hospital, said: “It is not just doctors and nurses that will miss out on parking permits, it is some of the lowest-paid staff and they could face parking charges of up to £5 a day.

“We are not very happy with the way it has been handled as there are disabled people who cannot walk to a bus stop or cycle to work. If some employees did use public transport to get to work their journey time would increase from 15 minutes to three hours — it’s just not acceptable.”

A trust spokesman said: “Our transport and access strategy promotes ‘green’ travel options and we try particularly hard to promote public transport.

“To help with this, we are introducing a new vehicle parking policy to manage parking more effectively, make better use of spaces, improve enforcement and reduce demand.”