By Hospital staff parking charges to resume in Grimsby and Scunthorpe
Parking charges are set to resume for staff working at hospitals in Grimsby and Scunthorpe.
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, which runs both hospitals, has announced plans to reintroduce charges this summer.
Despite this, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which operates hospitals in Lincoln, Boston, and Grantham, said it has no plans to reintroduce car parking charges for staff.
This comes as the the government’s scheme comes to an end this week.
According to the Department of Health and Social Care the policy was temporary and had been introduced “for the duration of the pandemic”.
It added that running the scheme had cost around £130m.
But the decision to scrap the programme has been met with widespread controversy with unions labelling it “a sick joke”.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that scrapping free parking is a “lousy way to repay” staff who had “put their lives on the line to get us through this pandemic”.
Speaking to The Lincolnite, a spokesperson for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation trust said:
“We were able to provide our staff with free parking during the pandemic as a result of a government subsidy, which was granted to all NHS trusts.
“Regretfully, after this subsidy comes to an end tomorrow (Friday, March 31) we will not be able to continue to offer our staff free parking in the long term.
“However, we wanted to ensure our staff were given as much notice as possible and, as such, charging will not resume until Friday, 1 July.”
