Wyre Forest community transport boss leads calls to solve hospital parking chaos

Drivers face the “anxiety” of daily gridlocked traffic and finding somewhere suitable to park to drop off and collect their vulnerable passengers. 

Thousands of patients, often frail elderly, use community schemes to attend essential appointments at the hospital every year.

But those running the schemes are struggling to persuade volunteers to take patients because it is too “stressful” and some drivers have stopped volunteering altogether.

David Muggeridge, chief officer of Wyre Forest Community Transport (WFCT) and chair of the Worcestershire Community Transport Consortium, said: “The situation at the hospital has reached crisis point, causing huge anxiety to both patients and volunteer drivers.

“Most of our drivers are retired people who give their time freely to help others, but they are finding the situation intolerable.

“In Wyre Forest we only have one volunteer prepared to make the journey to the hospital now and other schemes have reported similar issues.”

The consortium is calling for urgent action by the NHS Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust to address the parking and congestion issues and to reinstate free parking for community schemes.

Kim Shaw, community transport manager of Community Action Malvern and District, reported volunteers were leaving.

She said: “We have lost another driver because of the parking problems at Worcestershire Royal. More and more of our drivers are now refusing to go there because they find it too stressful and it takes too much time out of their day to park and drop people off, for what is often only a short appointment. 

“Our requests for lifts to the hospital are increasing each month but our volunteer drivers willing to go are getting less.”

A driver said: “It's chaos over here. It's not good for my stress level health. Worcestershire Royal is now prohibitive for vehicles in my opinion. Getting on and off the site is completely ridiculous - even at 2pm. 

“There was nowhere to park today - not even disabled or pay and display. Cars, buses and ambulances were blocking everywhere and at a standstill. 

“People were getting angry and frustrated in the queues and blocking the roads waiting to park so that traffic couldn't move.”

Wayne Boden, chair of Upton Community Care, described the removal of free parking as “ridiculous and unnecessary”.

Helen Gray, chief officer of Evesham Volunteer Centre, said: “Our drivers find Worcestershire Royal problematic to go to. 

“Many just drop off and then go to Tesco’s down the road and wait for the client to call them to say they are finished. Obviously, this is not the case when the client needs more help.” 

She added that last-minute appointment cancellations at the hospital were also causing anxiety for patients and issues for planning their services.

A trust spokesperson said the policy had not changed and volunteer drivers were invited and prioritised to utilise the 20-minute drop off spaces and the concessionary policy had been issued to the charities.

The spokesperson said: “When the spaces are full, we also support the drivers to park safely whilst picking up and dropping off. If any patients ask a charity organisation to wait and return, the patient can pay for the parking.”

However, Mr Muggeridge said consortium members had not seen a copy of the concessionary policy and community transport charities did not have to pay at all until management of the car park changed about a year ago.

The trust spokesperson added: "We are aware of the difficulties with congestion on the Worcestershire Royal Hospital site, particularly at peak times and we apologise to staff, patients and visitors who are affected by this.

"We are committed to resolving congestion issues and have put in place a number of options to help ease the situation. We have recently opened an additional 354-space staff car park at County Hall to reduce congestion into and out of the hospital site during peak times, and members of our parking teams are stationed at key pinch points around the hospital site at key times to help control the flow of traffic more effectively."