Changes to parking at a major Devon hospital have been met with backlash with staff venting their frustration about the situation. It comes after Derriford made the multi-storey car park patient only and that staff parking has been provided elsewhere on site, reports PlymouthLive.
One person told PlymouthLive that parking at the hospital yesterday was "chaos" and that a number of staff members were "very upset" by the changes. They added that "cars [were] trying to cram into the gravel, causing damage to cars and long queues."
Another visitor told PlymouthLive: "I went to visit a patient at the hospital around 2pm on Wednesday and there were staff in yellow jackets with 'NHS' on the back at the entrance of every car park. I was heading towards the gravel car park opposite the Subway and Costa.
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"The guy said all the staff have been moved out of the multi-storey and were now parking at the gravel car park, so we would have to go to the multi-storey. They were quite polite about it. All the entrances to the other car parks appeared to have men in the yellow jackets, evidently directing traffic. The parking in front of the main hospital entrance was packed so it was clearly very busy."
Derriford Hospital confirmed that staff had been made aware in advance of the plans and that it will closely monitor the changes in the coming weeks. It added that the change to staff parking is to improve traffic flow and allow patients to find parking spaces to get to their appointments on time.
A spokesperson from University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust said: “We have made planned changes to separate staff and patient parking to ensure that patients are able to park and make it to their appointments on time, and improve traffic flow on site.
"The multi-storey car park has been made patient-only, and staff parking has been re-provided in other car parks on the site – there has been no reduction in the number of staff able or permitted to park on site.
“We thank colleagues for their understanding and cooperation this morning as the changes have gone live. We appreciate that lots of people have parked in different places, and everyone has been civil and worked with the changes which we’ll closely monitor over the coming weeks.”
