NEWS

‘Car parking in hospitals should not be allocated to senior managers’ By Katie Osborne

@NS_reporter

Health minister Dan Poulter has said he will penalise hospitals that persist in charging their night shift nurses for parking. Dr Poulter said during a Commons debate that employers are expected to comply with Department of Health guidance published last month, which says certain groups including nurses who are unable to use public

transport because of the time of their shift, should not be expected to pay to park their cars at work. The guidance also tells hospitals that disabled patients and those visiting gravely ill relatives should be eligible for free parking. Dr Poulter said: ‘Car parking in hospitals should not be allocated according to staff seniority or because someone happens to be a senior manager. It should be allocated

according to the needs of staff and the type of care and shift patterns they provide, which is made clear in the guidance.’ Dr Poulter said the chief inspector of hospitals already has powers to take action against trusts that make it prohibitive for patients to receive treatment. ‘However, we will need to look at what other measures we can introduce against trusts that still show disregard for the guidelines, to make it clear that doing so is no longer acceptable,’ he added. He was responding to warnings from MPs that hospitals may ignore the guidance. Labour MP for Birkenhead Frank Field said trusts will ‘put two fingers up’ to the guidance. Car parking charges have been abolished in Scotland and Wales, but 79 per cent of hospitals in England charge.

Tax on nurses

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Make sure your record-keeping is clear and complete – or you could fall foul of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, nurses have been warned. RCN London assistant legal officer and nurse James Collier said poor record-keeping could result in a referral to the NMC or could be picked up on if a nurse was referred for other reasons. Speaking at the RCN school nurses conference in London last month, Mr Collier cited examples of typographical errors and mistakes made in clinical records, including ‘the patient

refused an autopsy’ and ‘I examined the genitalia and it was circus-sized’. He said there were 354 referrals to the NMC relating directly to poor record-keeping between 2004 and 2008. A total of 114 people were struck off the register as a result. Mr Collier said: ‘Your records are your justification for decisions made on that occasion. The quality of your record-keeping is a reflection of your standards of professional practice, and careless or incomplete recording often highlights wider problems.’

Conservative MP for Harlow Robert Halfon, who has been campaigning for free hospital parking, said: ‘This is a tax on nurses, who are paying an average of £200 a month just to park their cars so they can do their job.’ Jackie Doyle-Price, Conservative MP for Thurrock, revealed that more than 40 per cent of hospitals raise over £1 million a year from car parking charges. The charges are inappropriate and are preventing patients accessing NHS treatment that, she said, should be ‘free at the point of use’. ‘These charges are a tax on the sick,’ added Ms Doyle-Price. ‘I recognise there are many reservations about the removal of car parking charges because of the amount of revenue received, but I do not buy it. There is a lot more that hospital trusts can do to replenish gaps that might occur as a result of removing car parking charges,’ she said.

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Setting the record straight.

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