Hospital workers have labelled a 50 percent hike in staff parking charges “outrageous” as it was revealed the Trust’s top boss was paid a quarter of a million quid last year.
A senior staff member said she was planning to boycott the King’s College Hospital Trust carparks after the Head of Security announced plans to increase the cost of staff parking by hundreds of pounds a year in some cases.
In an email to senior hospital management seen by the News, the senior staff member, said the “levy” on “staff working tirelessly throughout the night and at weekends” could not have come at a worse time.
“With morale across the Trust at an all-time low, particularly amongst midwifery and nursing staff, this certainly does not place any value on us from senior management,” read the angry email.
“Levying this increase on your staff who are working tirelessly throughout the night and at weekends, often without adequate breaks, leaves many of us feeling demoralised,” it continued.
The News reported earlier this month that King’s needs to find savings of £86 million by March in order to recover from a £47million recorded deficit last year. The increase in staff parking charges, which will take effect from October 1, is just one way the Trust is trying to stay in the black, along with employing less costly agency staff.
Speaking to the News, the hospital’s Unite union representative Frank Wood, said: “King’s staff are working extremely hard and many have had a pay freeze for five years. Now being asked to bear such a significant extra cost will mean genuine hardship for many essential staff. The trust is effectively taxing its own staff to do their job.”
A spokesperson for King’s said: “The cost of providing safe and secure car parking at our hospitals has increased significantly in recent years. As a result, we recently took the difficult decision to increase the price of staff parking permits across all our sites.
“Higher demand for parking has resulted in the need for an increased security presence, and the installation of additional equipment. In the past, the Trust has absorbed these extra costs, but we are no longer in a position to do so.
“For staff on our Denmark Hill site, this is the first price rise in twelve years.”
There are no proposed changes to parking charges for visitors or patients.