Free Parking

The One-Wales government wants to make all NHS parking in Wales Free by April 1st, for staff, paitents and visitors to hospital, after calls from the BMA and paitent groups for it to be made free and end the "tax on sickness."

Now, where as this might look like a good idea on paper, it, in my opinion, will be a very unpragmatic solution to the problem of hospital car parking fees. The problem with this that they will not be able to tell who is using the hospital car parking because they have business at the hospital, and people using the hospital car park for other purposes, such as to go shopping, for example.

This would lead to hospital car parking spaces being filled up by selfish people, forcing paitents and staff to find elsewhere to park, and since most streets have double yellow lines, it could be a bit of a trek to find somewhere else they can park without the risk of getting a ticket, or be clamepd.

A more pragmatic and sensible solution to this would have been to give free parking to staff and paitents, the paitents could with their appointment cards, get another card which they can display in their windscreen that would entitle them to free parking for the day of their appointment.

Then there is a problem of where the cash will come from, will the Assembly government give the hospitals cost to not only cover the lost income from parking fees, but also enough to expand their parking facilities, (if possible, although I cannot imagine Bronglais hopsital in Aberystwyth being able to find anywhere to expand the parking facilites) due to increase in demand on the parking spaces.

Where as free prescriptions, was a good idea, free hospital parking for all is not, and will lead to more trouble in the long term for paitents.