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Prime Minister questioned on hospital parking charges Main Image

Prime Minister questioned on hospital parking charges

Wed 07 Feb 2018

Headway evidence has been used during Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) to support a call to scrap unfair hospital car parking charges.

Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, quoted Headway while calling on the Prime Minister to abolish extortionate hospital car parking charges once and for all.

Mr Halfon said: "Headway, the brain injury charity, says that a family recently had to pay £1,500 over 15 weeks for hospital car parking charges. CLIC Sargent say families who see their sick children with cancer have to pay hundreds of pounds.

"Despite government guidelines 50 per cent of hospitals charge the disabled. Staff from nurses to hospital porters have to pay hospital car parking charges. Given the unanimous motion last week in the House of Commons, will my honourable friend address this social injustice and abolish hospital car parking charges once and for all?"

Theresa May PM acknowledged the issue and said the government had sent guidance to hospital trusts on how to approach the matter.

Mrs May, replied: "I recognise that this is an issue that my honourable friend has been campaigning on for some time. As he says in his question, we have of course sent strong guidance to hospital trusts on the issue of car parking charges and we do of course look to ensure that those are being met.

"Of course individual hospitals are taking their own decisions in relation to this matter but I think it's right that the government has sent very clear guidelines to those hospitals as to how they should approach this."

The PMQ comes less than a week after Headway was mentioned during a parliamentary debate about hospital car parking charges led by Mr Halfon.

The MP's call to scrap hospital car parking charges was met with unanimous cross party approval.

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Headway - the brain injury association is registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Charity no. 1025852) and the Office of the Scottish Regulator (Charity no. SC 039992). Headway is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England no. 2346893.

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