Parking rules change for Edinburgh hospital staff

Sharon Johnstone said some colleagues had been looking for other jobs due to the parking issue

Hospital chiefs have changed the rules on staff car parking at two Edinburgh hospitals after the scheme was branded "unsafe".

Workers at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the Royal Hospital for Children will now be allowed to park at the Little France site without a parking permit after 11:30.

Just 1,800 of 8,000 staff who work at the hospitals have permits.

The rest were told to use an "isolated" park-and-ride two miles away.

• Hospital staff say new parking scheme is 'unsafe'

A free shuttle service to the Sheriffhall park-and-ride, which previously stopped at 20:15, will now run until 21:15 each day.

NHS Lothian said it was "listening to concerns about night time safety".

Staff had raised safety concerns over the new parking rules after they came into effect on 17 January.

However, some staff have said the changes do not go far enough to address their concerns.

One nurse, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "This is not going to have much impact as most staff start work earlier than 11.30 in the morning.

"And our breaks are only 30 minutes so we couldn't even move our cars half way through the day from the park and ride so we had them in the staff car park for the end of our shifts when it's dark.

"Staff also are getting upset because it's very difficult to get a space at the park and ride and then they are arriving at the hospital and seeing the staff car park half empty. They need to issue more parking permits for the staff car park."

A half-empty staff car park at 08:05 on Friday

Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian's deputy chief executive, said the staff parking permit scheme at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was brought in because the site had become congested due to the volume of cars accessing the site each day.

He said: "This posed a danger to staff, patients and visitors and compromised the ability of emergency blue light vehicles to access the hospitals.

"As we said we would, we are continually reviewing the parking arrangements across the campus site, considering both staff feedback and data collected by our parking teams to help shape and inform future decisions."

He added that the revised plans had now begun.