Hospitals: Parking — Written Question

Question

Jim McMahon

Labour (Co-op) — Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of hospital parking charges on (a) staff and (b) visitors to hospitals; and what information he holds on the total cost of such charges in the last 12 months.

Answer

Karin Smyth

No assessment has been made of the potential impact of hospital parking charges. Hospitals in England are permitted to charge users for car parking, but those charges must be reasonable and in line with local charges. The revenue from hospital car parking is used to maintain car park facilities and any surplus income is put back into the National Health Service. The following table shows the income from car parking from patients and visitors as well as staff in 2023/24 and 2022/23:

	Income from car parking - patients and visitors	Income from car parking - staff
2023/24	£172,332,199	£70,510,110
2022/23	£145,873,556	£46,653,234

Data on the income from car parking charges is published annually through the NHS Estates Return Information Collection, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/estates-returns-information-collection/summary-page-and-dataset-for-eric-2024-25

In 2025/26, the Department is backing the NHS with over £4 billion in operational capital, enabling local NHS organisations to allocate funding to local priorities, which could include hospital car parking.