News / Hospital parking pledge to cost £140m

Health secretary Andy Burnham told the Labour Party conference that the NHS needed ‘an unprecedented productivity and efficiency drive’ but added that some funds released by back office efficiencies should be used to pay for free car parking for hospital visitors.

He told the Brighton conference that the government would protect frontline services, but show ‘hard-headed realism about the new financial climate’.?

He said: ‘Let’s be clear: the era of large catch-up funding growth is over. Taxpayers have well funded the NHS and now rightly expect more for their money. That’s why we need an unprecedented productivity and efficiency drive.’

He reiterated his intention to link the tariff with quality and patient satisfaction rates, before promising parking charges would be phased out over three years. Inpatients would be given vouchers for use by family and friends in a move expected to cost £140m a year.

‘I am clear we will make year-on-year savings from back office costs and I want to see some of those benefits coming back directly to patients and their families,’ he said.

There were questions over whether the initiative could be implemented and it was unclear whether it could be applied to foundation trusts.

King’s Fund chief executive Niall Dickson said: ‘This is yet another spending commitment when we know that the NHS is about to face one of the toughest periods in its history.’

The conference also heard cancer patients would be given diagnostic tests within a week and Labour’s election manifesto would pledge to create a National Care Service for social care to work alongside the NHS.