"Overall, forgetting the car parking problems,..."

Thank you very much for taking the time to post positive comments about the care you received. Our Trust values are to Care Achieve and Innovate and it is great to hear that you have observed this during your treatment.

However you have mentioned the issue of car parking which I would like to address. When the PFI contract was signed the Trust agreed to give the management of the car parks and its associated costs, including the initial construction, running costs and ongoing maintenance, to the private sector consortium. These car parks are secure, maintained to a high standard and well lit.

Car parking is one element of the contact given to a private company to provide "soft services" to the Trust. The full "soft services" contract includes car parking, catering, cleaning, portering, switchboard and security services - none of which can contractually be taken in isolation.

Our primary focus is to provide high quality and safe care to our acutely sick patients. We do appreciate that car parking is an emotive issue which is why we are committed to looking at all options available at easing this - however our priority has to be patient car and any decision taken by the Trust will consider this first and foremost.

A review of car parking was completed last year with the support from Warwick Business School to evaluate all options available and car parking pricing is one area that we asked them to look at. Following that review and the opinions expressed in the public consultation the decision was made to reduce the parking charges at University Hospital.

The Trust also increased the number of parking spaces in February this year and this month we have started work to redevelop waste ground on the hospital site to increase the numbers of spaces for patients and staff by 433. This work will be complete by the end of the year

In the meantime we will continue to do our best to help a large portion of our visitors and patients by having our own concession scheme in place which includes free parking for patients who attend regularly for chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, renal dialysis patients, parents who need to stay in hospital overnight to accompany their sick children and those collecting paperwork in relation to a bereavement.

We also operate an NHS travel concession scheme for patients on income support and patients and visitors are well supported by public transport routes onto site.

Thanks again for your feedback and I trust your recovery from surgery is going well.