Dear Editor,

As the former Chairman of the Ross-on-Wye Community Hospital Campaign Team, which successfully fought for the new Community Hospital for the Town, I was hugely disappointed to read that the Wye Valley NHS Trust’s intention to introduce parking charges at the Community Hospital.

The NHS is one of the greatest services and provides an excellent standard of care, which is free at the point of delivery to all of its citizens. Patients, carers, and families in and around Ross and surrounding district should not be put off going to hospital or to their GP Surgery by parking charges.

It would been helpful if the WVT had produced a business case on the matter which had been open for circulation and had been consulted upon. Had this been undertaken it would have involved an equality and community assessment of the decision. The impact for staff at the hospital and the GP surgery is immense. What guarantees will there be that the Ross Hospital and Alton Street Surgery staff will receive free car parking? What guarantees/provision will there be for the disabled? Equally, the impact on the community and patients, carers and families means that the Ross Community Hospital car park would become a general car park, and not just one for patients, families/carers. In the future and as a result of this decision, there might therefore not be the spaces available for those patients or families/carers visiting the surgery and hospital. The effect might lead to more car parking and traffic problems around Alton Street area as a result of the decision.

It would also be useful for the WVT to clarify whether, as part of its contract with the health service commissioners, they are empowered to introduce car parking charges, and whether this is allowed as part of any original contract. The car park charges being introduced is part of income generation for WVT, using patients, carers and relatives as people being targeted to pay more, which is in effect an additional ‘tax on the unwell/sick.’

The current system of registering the number of the car, with the hospital and GP surgery works well, so there is not the problem of non visitors using the car park for shopping purposes, as sometimes this is used to argue the case for charges.

Bearing all the above in mind, and the fact that the decision is highly controversial, I am requesting that the WVT reviews its decision. This will allow more time for the WVT to consider all of the implications of its decision and take on board the views of the local community, whose taxes and rates originally paid for the land at the Ross Community Hospital. In the meantime, please would the WVT put the decision ‘on hold’ until proper consultation has taken place?

Paul Deneen

Ross-on-Wye