One of the ones that wanted the full reg number? I couldn't work those either, although mine was at the hospital in Margate.
I think all of those were 'converted' to numbers only. Not sure, as I avoid Canterbury like the plague, even if I live only 6-7 miles away.
I visit quite a few supermarkets for work and several Sainsbury's stores have the same noisy Travolators. Several Tesco stores also have them; some are equally noisy (e.g. Kingston in Milton Keynes) but others aren't (one just outside Northampton, plus Wycombe).
The announcements are either an HSE requirement or something demanded by the DDA.
Crikey are they that LOUD and preceeded by a BING BONG?
Yes, BING BONG, they're the ones. ;-)
You obviously haven't. Why should the taxpayer subsidise parking at hospitals for all and sundry as you suggest in the first part of your post? I'd rather such funds were spent on treating patients.
You'd be amazed what some people consider is an emergency.
Quite, caught "Real Life Rescues" or something similar the other night. One of the 999 operators related a tale of someone calling 999 as they couldn't find their TV remote and didn't know how to switch off their TV without it.
FFS. I am not proposing any such thing as you would know if you had read my post properly. Car park charges are a fairly recent innovation and I doubt that the fees actually get back to improving patient care. I'll bet is all gets swallowed up by the army of bureaucrats that administer the scheme.
Irrelevant. The hospital is quite capable of deciding what is an emergency.
Others on this thread have suggested an alternative -- pay on exit. For "real" emergencies the parking can be free.
Yes - and plenty other examples. If a real medical emergency you'd be better of calling an ambulance since you'll likely get faster attention that way than going to a hospital. As regards outpatient treatment, *most* could make use of public transport or if they are too infirm for this facilities provided by the hospital. The high car park charges don't seem to put people off driving there - the local hospital carpark is always full. And it is well provided for by public transport. In case anyone things I'm being 'NIMBY' about this I've been attending physio at a local clinic for the last few weeks. And go by bus.
The tome of your post suggests you were.
So suggest a better scheme.
Perhaps such administration should be done by volunteers?
Great. I can just imagine the posts from you when they disagree with your definition of an emergency. And which 'army of bureaucrats' is going to decide what is and what isn't an emergency as regards charging for parking?
Sounds like a way of having the carpark jammed with abandoned cars. And also requires more sophisticated equipment than a simple ticket machine.
It is for ambulances. Which should be used for true emergencies.
I feel sorry for the poor sods having to attend St.Thomas Hospital in the centre of London for their chemo. What a bloody nightmare that is.
I'm lucky - I have to attend Barts. Massive car park 2 minutes walk away, and pretty cheap! Nothing to do with the hospital of course...
What tome?
Several people have -- pay on exit.
ROTFL! It's almost impossible to get volunteers for far more rewarding work that this nowadays. Everyone wants paying nowdays.
It's very easy. You just present your casualty forms at the exit and you don't need to pay. Otherwise you pay.
It depends on the type of emergency. Our ambulance service is severely underfunded and cannot even meet its own (lax) targets. I'd rather go in a car, if possible, instead of waiting for an ambulance that may take hours to turn up (or not at all).
As with other inner City hospitals you can't get parked even if you want to pay because it is clogged up by off duty staff with parking permits doing their shopping etc.
mark
I doubt it, outside M-F 9-5 it would be the best part of an hour for an ambulance to attend here. That's working day restriction is assuming that the the volunteer ambulance is still in the town otherwise it's an hour at any time of day or night.
I'd call the local cottage hospital which has a 24/7 minor injuries unit and they *might* call one of the local GP's in a dire emergency but the GP's don't do "out of hours" cover and delegate that to CueDoc. So *if* there was a CueDoc Dr available they'd still take the hour or so to get here.
Public Transport whats that? Half a dozen buses to several different destinations M-F. The chances of the bus timetable fitting with an hospital appointment are so close to zero that they may as well be zero. You'd have to change bus at least once if not twice depending on which hospital you where heading for. I'm not even sure that one could get to Newcastle by PT without going to Brampton/Haltwhistle or Carlisle.
But you live in the metropolis of London with probably the best PT system in the country. For the vast majority of the country PT barely exists.
This is the problem. Getting to a hospital with an emergency doesn't guarantee you'll be seen immediately. At least when the ambulance arrives you'll have their full attention. ;-)
Do any centre of town hospitals have adequate free or cheap parking? I somehow doubt it. And is driving there any easier for a sick person than using other means?
So what happens if you don't own a car - or are unfit to drive? If you're relying on someone else to drive you then do they have to have free parking on the premises?
Then you could drive to somewhere with easy parking that's on a reasonable PT link - if you really don't want to pay the parking fees. Unless you think you should have a waiver from them because of where you live. That would go down well with some. ;-)
Most drivers can't be bothered with it even if it were perfect. But seemingly can't understand it's impossible to provide roads and parking for them in our towns without demolishing them and starting again.
At our A&E there are a handful of free spaces with a 20 minute limit (painted bright red!) right outside the A&E entrance. The idea being that should be long enough to deposit someone and then shift the car. To be fair it did actually seem to work on the one occasion I needed to use one.
They are that loud. There are two parallel flights (one up, one down) and two flights (one from ground to the sort of mezzanine level and a second from there up to the car park level). The whole affair is in a large foyer area with hard, echoic walls, floors and ceilings. And there are speakers at the end of every belt which sound when anyone on a belt gets near the end - whether or not they have a trolley to push off the end of it.
So on a busy day they can be going off simultaneously on all four belt ends. And the extra bing bongs in the lifts... (Actually, I'm not sure that they don't also announce 'Hold onto the handrail at the start of each belt as well.) And there's another pair of belts inside the store.
I have been meaning to take a voice recorder with me because it sounds more like the soundtrack from a modern Radio 4 play about a dystopian future - but on R4 they would not have it as loud.
My daughter has been called out to; run out of paracetamol, baby has been crying for nearly an hour, bad period pains, my £20 blood pressure monitor tells me I'm nearly dead (the £16k one in the ambulance didn't) etc etc. Not to mention numerous scroats od'ing on drugs and endless drunks.
Blood Sweat & Tea is a good read.
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