Parking Charges at Ninewells Hospital

On 2nd September, BBC Scotland announced :

"NHS car parking charges abolished

Car parking charges are to be abolished at NHS hospitals across Scotland, the health secretary has announced.

An interim cap of £3 per day has been in place since January.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said the move would help reaffirm the NHS's founding principle of healthcare free at the point of delivery."

What, of course, Nicola Cheerful failed to confirm was that this principle didn't apply at all NHS hospitals and that those who had entered into PFI contracts for parking provision would not be covered by the abolition of charges. As Dundonians are only too well aware, one of these contracts is that at Ninewells Hospital; the contract between NHS Tayside and Vinci Park.

It is not that that the SNP government was prohibited from buying out Vinci Park; it is simply that it chose not to do so, and there has been much exaggerated spinning about the actual cost of buying out the contract.

As long as there are parking charges at Ninewells, people in those areas of the West End nearest to the hospital will continue to suffer from unwanted parked cars in residential streets. The failure of the SNP government to act to properly resolve this matter is obvious, but to exacerbate the problem and with classicly poor timing, Vinci Park has now announced it is increasing parking charges at Ninewells Hospital from 3rd November (click on the headline above to read the article about this in yesterday's "Evening Telegraph").

Back on 2nd September, the BBC said of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing:

"She said she wanted NHS boards to work with contractors at the three hospitals with PFI car parks - at Edinburgh and Glasgow Royal Infirmaries and Ninewells in Dundee - to limit and reduce the charges until the contracts came to an end."

On this, given the annoucement by Vinci Park of price hikes, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have totally failed the people of Dundee.