Petition launched to get free parking for NHS staff at Doncaster hospital

Parking restrictions were eased at the hospital at the height of the coronavirus pandemic – but a campaign has been launched by an upset Doncaster man who feels staff should have free parking all the time.

Petition organiser Bradley Moore said: "Doncaster hospital charges its staff for parking. This is all wrong.

"All NHS staff should have free parking while at work.

“The NHS staff got free parking during Covid 19, now they have lost their free parking.

"Some have to pay for parking so they can work or try and park their cars on side streets which leads to cars been damaged or broken into.

“Now the time has to come to give back to the NHS and say all NHS staff in all regions should have free parking and not have to pay for going to work.”

A spokesman for Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, which runs DRI, said parking issues at the hospital were complex and a number of measures were in place to help staff park and get to work.

He said: “We have the Park and Ride shuttle at the Racecourse which is free for staff, and we run regular shuttles between the hours of 6am to 11pm, every 20 minutes.

"We lease this at a cost of around £50,000 every year and we’ve recently resurfaced the area and put in new bus shelters.

"We also run free shuttles between our main sites for staff.

"We also have a permit system, with colleagues able to park on site within designated areas for as low as £14 a month for our lower salaried/part time colleagues.

“Finally, from the hours of 6pm to 8.45am, parking on site is free.

"The issue we have is that DRI is a landlocked site, built with the challenges of the 1960s in mind, with little room for further development. There are around 900 car parking spaces to serve around 4,000 colleagues and an average of about 40,000 patients per month.

“We offered free car parking from March 2020 to July 2021, however one of the issues we saw during this time was an increasing difficulty for patients to find a suitable spot to leave their vehicle. This then could result in them missing an appointment.

"Therefore car parking is a balancing act for the Trust, and we try to introduce mitigations such as the Park and Ride to offer a reasonable alternative for colleagues.”

You can sign the petition HERE