County Durham hospitals introduce parking charge for blue badge holders

Tyne Tees
County Durham
parking
Hospitals
Wednesday 31 August 2016 at 3:18pm

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust plans to introduce car parking charges for blue badge holders at its three main hospital sites: Darlington Memorial Hospital, University Hospital of North Durham and Bishop Auckland Hospital.

Blue badges are for disabled motorists or disabled passengers and give vehicles concessions and designated parking. Holders previously had free parking at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust's sites.

Alison McCree, Director of Estates and Facilities said:

This is not a decision the Trust has taken lightly. This is about how we create fair and good access for everyone using our hospital services and this move will also bring us into line with other health trusts and local authorities in the region. We also know there are over 30 other NHS organisations nationally which have already introduced charges for blue badge holders. Like all NHS organisations we are operating in a challenging financial environment and these new arrangements will support economies we have to make but will help protect our front-line services and staffing. The tariffs from car parking charges are re-invested into the Trust’s central fund to support services and enable improvements to patient care. Blue badge holders will continue to have designated bays and we are installing new payment machines where necessary to ensure these are easily accessible for people using the bays. The Trust does have a number of concessions in place to support different groups of patients and visitors, including those visiting long stay patients or for patients receiving cancer treatments, and these will continue. We will be introducing the new charges during the Autumn and will be displaying signage across our car parks to share more information.