Benefit for patients and visitors (From Wharfedale Observer)

Benefit for patients and visitors

9:40am Wednesday 30th December 2009

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New Year is traditionally a time when we take a moment to think both about steps towards self-improvement and a general wishlist for the coming year.

Personal resolutions are just that – personal – and we could all do with some help sticking to the path that will help us achieve the specific goals we all set ourselves.

When it comes to the larger issue of wishes for a better world, of course all the big – and sadly, seemingly unattainable – dreams continue to haunt us: the yearning for an end to war, starvation and injustice.

But one wish on a more modest scale, and yet one that would undoubtedly benefit millions of people, could be within our grasp: the abolition of hospital parking charges which, in Otley and across Leeds, shot up by about a third in November.

For far too many years, people either suffering from the most appalling and worrying conditions, or those visiting them, have had this extra, financial concern added to their misery. And, as patient groups and charities have been saying repeatedly, it amounts to a tax on the sick.

It is hard to argue with Otley town councillor Neville Birch’s belief that since hospitals are part of the NHS, an institution whose whole ethos is based upon providing health care free at the point of delivery to whoever needs it, so parking at hospitals should be without charge too.

Of course, Health Secretary Andy Burnham is not suggesting anything so radical and the various health trusts across the country might point to their rising parking costs as a reason to avoid taking that path – even though it appears to be working well enough in Scotland and Wales.

But even the Government’s more modest (and many would say very belated) list of proposed concessions on patient and visitor parking should deliver a real benefit to many people. That is something we should all, regardless of political party allegiances, be able to toast as we welcome 2010.

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