"Lack of parking spaces"

Dear StuartYC

Thank you for letting us know of your experience trying to access the car park and then find a parking space, which is very stressful when you are keen to be in time for a specialist clinic appointment. I am sorry this happened.

The Car Parking Team from the Royal Hospital have been notified and will respond.

Mary

Ophthalmology Service Manager

Dear StuartYC,

My name is Susan Garland and I am a Logistics Manager within BHSCT. Please accept my apologies for your recent car parking experience on the RVH site and how this affected attending an appointment on time. The Belfast Trust encourages staff to commute to work by public transport, walking, cycling, by motorbike or to car share.

Despite this, the demand for car parking by staff exceeds the limited amount of car parking available on each site – particularly on the RVH site. Allocated car parking for staff reached capacity a number of years ago with many staff on a waiting list for car parking for up to 4 years. As a consequence, staff often park in the public carparks and pay the daily tariff and this impacts on spaces, especially in the main visitors carpark. This can add to the anxiety that many patients and their families may already be experiencing and leads to understandable levels of frustration.

To ensure that available staff parking provision is targeted towards those in greatest need, the Trust recently agreed to apply carpark access criteria for staff. This system has now gone live on the BCH site and will roll out to the Mater and RVH sites soon. This will result in more spaces being available for patients and their families. The Trust also operate a free Park N Ride from Blacks Road to the RVH for staff to try and alleviate some of the pressures of car parking on this site.

In addition we currently have access to Translink services if applicable as below,

Translink operate a direct Park & Ride service 646 from Black’s Road to the Royal site and return - timetable attached

This service operates Monday to Friday from 06:45 to 18:24, running regularly throughout the day.

Journey time from Black's Road to the Royal is 10 minutes and drops off are at the Children's Hospital and Royal Maternity. Return Service stop is located at the School of Dentistry.

A return ticket costs £3.70

Glider Route passes the front entrances to RBHSC and RVH Falls Road

Shuttle buses operate from Europa bus centre every 20 minutes, connecting from both train and bus services

I hope the above explains some of the measures being taken to improve parking for patients and their families. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further issues relating to car parking and my apologies again for your recent experience.

Kind regards

Susan.