5:30am Wednesday 19th July 2006
By Andy Tate
HEALTH chiefs have been warned against "fleecing patients unfairly" as it emerged Southampton hospitals charge some of the highest car parking fees in the country.
The government issued the warning in response to a report by MPs which condemned hospitals for making millions of pounds by charging patients and their visitors sky-high car park and telephone charges.
The Commons Health Select Committee said hospital parking fees should be scrapped for patients attending on a daily basis and season tickets should be introduced for frequent visitors.
It followed the publication of car parking statistics for 2004/5 which found Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust charges an average hourly fee of £3 the joint third highest rate.
In March the Daily Echo revealed that hospitals in Southampton raised nearly £1.5m by forcing patients and visitors to pay for parking their cars in the year to April 2005.
Meanwhile, Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare made £532,000 and Isle of Wight Healthcare raised £250,000. Nationally, in 2004/5, hospitals charged £78m for the use of car parks, £63m was paid by visitors and £15m by their own hospital staff.
In their highly critical report, published yesterday, MPs branded the system of NHS charges including fees for using hospital telephones "a complete mess".
Romsey MP Sandra Gidley, a member of the committee, called for a wholesale review of the charging system.
The Lib Dem MP said: "The extent of charging in the NHS highlights how extra costs have crept into a service that should be free at the point of use.
"It is unacceptable that attempts to save money through more day surgery is resulting in increased costs for patients with high parking fees."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We will study the recommendations of this report very carefully. We think that hospitals should continue to be able to charge for parking but trusts should not fleece patients unfairly."
A spokeswoman for the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust said it was already providing discounts for regular visitors and claimed that, as the eighth largest acute trust in the country, it would expect to generate more revenue from parking charges than many other hospitals.
Patients and visitors paid no more than £6 for a 24-hour visit and discounts were available for those with longer-term conditions, she added.
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