Wigan's hospital trust makes more than £1m from car parking

Figures from NHS England reveal Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) earned £1.1m in car parking fees in the year to March.

Of this, £539,000 was from parking for staff, with the remaining £587,000 for patients and visitors.

The data shows the trust also spent £400,000 on parking services over the same period, meaning in total it made £726,000 from parking.

The report coincides with work beginning this week on a new multi-storey car park on Freckleton Street close to Wigan Infirmary.

Across England, NHS trusts made a net revenue of £165.6m from parking charges. This was from a total of £242.8m in car parking fees, after spending £77.2m to run parking services.

This included £70.5m charged to NHS staff.

GMB, a union which represents thousands of NHS staff, workers deserve better.

The union's national secretary, Rachel Harrison, said NHS workers have suffered "rocketing workloads, chronic understaffing and the fallout from a global pandemic".

She said: "Health workers are on their knees – they need help and support. Charging them to park is kicking them while they are down."

The GMB is calling on the Government and NHS employers to scrap staff car parking charges.

The figures also show there were 2,860 available parking spaces across WWL sites.

That figure will increase in the coming 12 months once a new muti-storey car park on Freckleton Street, Wigan, is built.

Patricia Marquis, executive director for England of the Royal College of Nurses, said: "Nursing staff provide a vital public service and often work unsocial hours and in places where public transport is not always possible.

"They shouldn’t be forced to spend a significant portion of their wages just to park at work."

She added all staff should be able to access "safe, sustainable and affordable" transport, and urged employers and local authorities to work together on the issue.

NHS England said revenue from parking is put towards other services provided by trusts.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "Hospital car park charges are the responsibility of individual NHS trusts, however any charges must be reasonable and in line with the local area.

"Free parking is available for all NHS staff who work overnight."