Increased income from parking charges for hospitals in Northumberland and North Tyneside in 2023

Latest NHS England figures show Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust earned £749,000 from parking charges in 2023, up from £556,000 the year before.

All of this was made up from visitor payments.

Hospitals run by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne, and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), which includes Northgate Hospital and St George’s Park in Morpeth, earned £97,100 from visitor payments in 2023, up from £51,600.

The figures represent the gross income earned and do not consider costs for providing car parking.

A spokesperson for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust said: "Our car parking charges for patients and visitors remain among the lowest in the NHS and, as one of the largest geographical trusts in England, we have charges in place at seven hospital sites.

"We offer free car parking for patients and their visitors in a number of cases which includes disabled badge holders, patients attending regularly over an extended period, and visitors of long-stay patients.

"All income received from parking charges, from both staff and patients or visitors, pays for the maintenance and security of our car parks and any surplus funds are reinvested directly into patient care and developing local services.”

A spokesperson for CNTW said: “We charge visitors to park on our sites, which are spread across the North East, although we operate a scheme where carers can park for free when visiting service users.

“The charges go towards maintenance of the car parks and to enforce parking restrictions to ensure that people park safely, for the benefit of everyone who uses our sites.”

Hospitals across England received over £190m from charging visitors and staff to use their car parks.

Nationally, there were over 446,000 parking spaces available at NHS facilities, a decline of 3% on last year.

Of these, 5,048 were available across all sites at Northumbria Healthcare, fewer than in 2022 when there were 5,130.

2,540 were available across CNTW sites, up from 2,291 in 2022.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said parking charges are needed to help manage capacity at NHS sites, and the fees charged must not be "significantly more than other hospitals in the local area."