Hospital parking charges at Good Hope Hospital – 2008/09 figures raise questions

I’ve had a response to my Freedom of Information request to Good Hope Hospital (PDF) for their income from parking charges – and their expenditure.

This is how they say it breaks down:

Year	Income	Expenditure
2006/07	762213	929989
2007/08	907976	1191302
2008/09	1064886	1206069

What makes me curious about these figures is that the hospital appears to be making a consistent loss on parking – of between £140,000 (08/09) and £280,000 (07/08). Often hospitals claim they outsource parking because it is supposed to be done more efficiently. I’m not sure how a car park which costs £1.2m per year to run can be seen to be efficient.

Meanwhile, while the Lib Dem figures showed parking charges rose by 20% from 06/07 to 07/08; these figures show that that rate has continued.

Curiously, the figures above differ from those obtained by the Liberal Democrats by around £60,000 – I’m not sure why.

But more importantly, I’m not clear how you can spend £1.2m on a car park – and that’s my next question to the Heart of England NHS Trust.

If you want to help me find out more, post a comment and I can invite you to the investigation.

Lib Dems dig up data on hospital parking charges

A few weeks ago the Liberal Democrats used Freedom of Information powers to find out figures for all hospitals. Our ongoing investigation managed to get hold of the raw data in spreadsheet format. According to that, Good Hope Hospital took £840,000 from parking charges in 07/08 – £700k from patients and £140k from staff. The previous year’s neat figure of £700,000 was made up of £576k from patients and £124k from staff.

The difference represents an increase of 20%. Looked at separately, a 13% rise in staff parking charges and 21.5% in patient parking charges.

If you want to help me find out more, post a comment and I can invite you to the investigation.