"Conditions at hairmyres"

Dear honest opinion,

I recognise that car parking is a challenge for patients, visitors and staff alike at the moment. This is generally an issue across the three acute hospitals in Lanarkshire, but the Hairmyres site has the added pressure of being within a short walk of Hairmyres train station as you’ll know.

The issue of car parking is highlighted and discussed at the hospital daily safety meetings that consider current issues and the impact on our ability to provide safe, effective, person-centred care.

The NHS Lanarkshire – Achieving Excellence Healthcare Strategy acknowledges that 70% of people attending hospitals travel by car with only 15% travelling by public transport. Going forward NHS Lanarkshire “will develop a definitive policy in conjunction with are relevant stakeholders, to ensure that parking at NHS Lanarkshire sites is protected for patients and staff and that all available parking is used to the best advantage of all stakeholders. This process will include, for example, consideration of staff only parking areas and arrangements to protect parking for specific patient groups. This process will be taken forward in conjunction with stakeholder representatives.”

Please be assured that this is a pressing issue that we are doing our best to address but we are limited with regards to the “enforcement” action we can take as the hospital roads and car parks are not part of the public highway. This means we don’t have any statutory powers to enforce parking regulations. ISS Mediclean manage the car parks on behalf of NHS Lanarkshire and they have increased early morning monitoring in an attempt to deter commuters and their staff can apply adhesive notices to inappropriately parked vehicles; but that, regrettably, is the limit of our enforcement capability at present.

You may be aware that we have also started a media campaign in an effort to deter commuters from using the hospital car park.

I would also urge members of the public and members of staff who are able, to consider using public transport to travel to the hospital if possible, or car share; but I appreciate this is dependent on accessibility, shift patterns and roles.

Whilst I’m unable to guarantee any immediate improvement I can assure you that the management team at Hairmyres will continue to make every effort to address the ongoing situation.

Please contact Jim Robson Head of PFI/PPP Contracts if you’d like to discuss this in person.

Kind regards

Joanne