The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Mid-morning on a Monday at the Johnson Community Hospital and the staff car park has plenty of spaces but it’s a different story in the main car park (below). Photos: VNG010914-76 and 77.
Staff at Johnson Community Hospital have been reminded that patients have priority in the main car park.
It follows a complaint that staff appear to be shunning their own car park in preference to getting closer to the hospital’s main entrance.
A reader of The Voice said: “I sat in reception from about 8.45am on a weekday while my wife had a blood test and saw about 15 or 16 people arrive for work and park near the entrance. I know they were staff because they were wearing ID badges.
“Clearly there were plenty of spaces in the main park at that time of the day but if you have a mid-morning appointment, sometimes you can be riding around looking for a space.
“The staff seem to get the nearest parking spaces to the hospital entrance, but there could be a case where the disabled parking bays are full and a disabled person needs a space which a staff member has taken.”
The car park is owned by NHS Property Services and is available for all to use, free of charge.
Staff have a barriered car park abutting the Spalding Road edge of the site.
The retired Spalding resident added: “If there wasn’t a staff car park, you could say the situation is more understandable.
“If a pay and display machine was installed in the main car park, you would soon see the staff’s cars disappear then!
“Having said that, I don’t agree with staff having to pay to park at hospitals.”
A spokesman for NHS Property Services said: “We recognise the demands on hospital parking from patients, visitors and staff.
“Johnson Community Hospital is a busy site as it accommodates a number of organisations including Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Lincolnshire Community Health Services, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
“We ask all staff to use the overflow car park at the front of the hospital site and if they do park in the main car park, we ask them to park the furthest from the building allowing patients to park closer to the main entrance.”
The complaint came just a few weeks after Brylaine Travel announced that its service buses were no longer using a stop on the hospital site due to it being uneconomical and vehicles turning into and out of the site presented a danger to passengers and other road users.
