Home Politics & Debate
If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨

NHS hospital parking charges scrapped in Scotland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7593400.stm

So prescription charges and from now on, no parking fees.

Why do they have it so much better than in England & Wales?

Tempted to move up...

As an aside note, this:
The move, which takes effect from 31 December, applies to 14 hospitals where fees operate. Charges at three PFI car parks will not be scrapped.

Ms Sturgeon said the long-term nature of the PFI contracts meant that scrapping the charges would be prohibitively expensive.

goes to prove, if anyone still needed proof, what an odious abomination PFIs are.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    They need to scrap them here, I have to pay and I actually work there.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My local hospital is good, only £1.50 and you stay as long as you like :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »

    Why do they have it so much better than in England & Wales?

    Parking charges were scrapped at most Welsh hospitals back in April and will be phased out (almost) completely by 2011.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Most of the ones in Wales have been scrapped as well. In Wales, the only hospital car parks that still charge are ones where the hospital has contracted it out to a private company. They've been ordered to bring their prices down until the contracts in question expire.

    Still, it's nice to see Aladdin catching up with the current injustices of the union. Whilst we're on the subject of things being better in Scotland, here's another one. If you're Scottish, and go to a Scottish university, it'll cost you far less than anywhere else in the UK. If you're Welsh, and you go to a Welsh university, you only pay £1,200 a year for your university education. The Welsh Assembly pays the other £1,800 for you. If you're English, and you go to just about any UK university, you get hammered with the full £3,000 a year fee. Can anyone justify why three countries in the same union should have such different policies?
  • JsTJsT Posts: 18,268 Skive's The Limit
    Same old isn't it... :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    Most of the ones in Wales have been scrapped as well. In Wales, the only hospital car parks that still charge are ones where the hospital has contracted it out to a private company. They've been ordered to bring their prices down until the contracts in question expire.

    Still, it's nice to see Aladdin catching up with the current injustices of the union. Whilst we're on the subject of things being better in Scotland, here's another one. If you're Scottish, and go to a Scottish university, it'll cost you far less than anywhere else in the UK. If you're Welsh, and you go to a Welsh university, you only pay £1,200 a year for your university education. The Welsh Assembly pays the other £1,800 for you. If you're English, and you go to just about any UK university, you get hammered with the full £3,000 a year fee. Can anyone justify why three countries in the same union should have such different policies?
    So why does that happen?

    Not being clever or trying to stir things up, genuinely not familiar with the workings of the Union. Does the budget for such things come from Scotland or from England? In other words, if getting rid of prescription charges and hospital parking fees is covered by the Scottish and they can afford to do it (rather than being paid for by the English), then why can't England do the same?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    So why does that happen?

    Not being clever or trying to stir things up, genuinely not familiar with the workings of the Union. Does the budget for such things come from Scotland or from England? In other words, if getting rid of prescription charges and hospital parking fees is covered by the Scottish and they can afford to do it (rather than being paid for by the English), then why can't England do the same?

    It's a mixture - some of the funding is locally funded, but most comes from the UK Government. This is money raised from all four countries in the Union, not just England. The Greater South East puts in more than it recieves in Govt funding, everywhere else (including parts of England) gets more.

    Scotland gets more money due to the Barnett Formula (as does Northern Ireland and Wales) which is based on an old formula worked out in the 70s which takes into account wealth per head of population, health, social problems etc. It may be slightly out of date, but the basic idea that poorer parts of the Kingdom are subsidised by the richer seems fundamentally sound and any new formula is still likely to result in the Scots geting more money than the English.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The Greater South East puts in more than it recieves in Govt funding, everywhere else (including parts of England) gets more.
    How do they even work that out? Say for example, that a London-based company owns an oil rig in the North Sea manned by Scottish people. Then technically, will it not pay taxes in London, and therefore lead to the claim that more money goes into government from London than anywhere else? Obviously, that's why the system works well, because without the rest of the country, many companies would never have been what they are today. And increasingly, I assume we can apply the same logic to foreign workers in places like India. Only they don't get a share of the profits.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    How do they even work that out? Say for example, that a London-based company owns an oil rig in the North Sea manned by Scottish people. Then technically, will it not pay taxes in London, and therefore lead to the claim that more money goes into government from London than anywhere else? Obviously, that's why the system works well, because without the rest of the country, many companies would never have been what they are today. And increasingly, I assume we can apply the same logic to foreign workers in places like India. Only they don't get a share of the profits.

    As you say its because most large firms have their headquarters in London and its also where there are more high paying jobs per head of the population than anywhere else.

    And yes London may be wealthy but without the rest of the country it would be poorer (it also acts as a magnet and pulls highly educated and skilled people from the rest of the UK). An independent London would be as bad for its population as an independent Scotland would be for Scotland.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin, scrapping the car parking charges would've come out of the Scottish health budget, which means that the Scottish Parliament would've had to have made a conscious decision to do this, knowing that other services may be cut back to fund it.

    There seems to be an impression on this and other policies, like scrapping prescription charges in Wales, that this would've been directly financed by England when it just isn't true.

    I'd imagine that because there are fewer NHS car parks in Scotland and Wales then scrapping charges is a realistic aim, I think it costs around £3m a year in Wales (out of health budget of £5billion). If they tried to do the same in England, which has probably 50 times the number of car parks of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined, the cost would likely run into tens of millions of pounds and the Department of Health would see it as a waste of resources.

    It's one of the problems of being in a Union where one partner is significantly larger than the others.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Braineater wrote: »
    There seems to be an impression on this and other policies, like scrapping prescription charges in Wales, that this would've been directly financed by England when it just isn't true.

    That depends. If they have a higher per capita health budget than England, then they are getting extra benefits as a result paid for out of the communal pot. Of course from the point of view of the English, it would make no difference whether this was spent on free prescriptions, or some new ambulances, but the latter wouldn't get any headlines.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    To put it simply and in rather bitter fashion Wales, NI and Scotland have been sponging off the South East for far too long, they should all piss off and look after themselves.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote: »
    To put it simply and in rather bitter fashion Wales, NI and Scotland have been sponging off the South East for far too long, they should all piss off and look after themselves.

    Should the north of England become independent too then? Because they 'sponge' just as much as Scotland, NI and Wales.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote: »
    To put it simply and in rather bitter fashion Wales, NI and Scotland have been sponging off the South East for far too long, they should all piss off and look after themselves.
    :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    :rolleyes:



    He has a point. If Scotland ever cut itself off from the Union it would be in a far worse position than England ever would.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I mean since all the army have sworn an oath of allegeance to the Queen. Id like to see scotland take its land back from the armed forces, when they no longer have anyone to defend them with.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    I mean since all the army have sworn an oath of allegeance to the Queen. Id like to see scotland take its land back from the armed forces, when they no longer have anyone to defend them with.

    An independent Scotland might keep the Queen...

    Though it's actually a good argument against London seceeding from the Union as half the Army are Micks, Jocks and Taffs, with a fair few hailing from the North. To say nothing of City workers, civil servants etc. London only does well because it sucks in talent from the rest of the UK.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    He has a point. If Scotland ever cut itself off from the Union it would be in a far worse position than England ever would.
    That's not what I was eye-rolling at, it was the assumption that Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have only ever 'sponged' off of England.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don't see how Scotland would be worse off either.

    Look at the Republic of Ireland, hardly any natural resources yet has an one of the best economies in the world. I think all countries would be better of without the Union, it's such a throwback to the old colonial days, definately not what we need or want in a modern world.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That's not what I was eye-rolling at, it was the assumption that Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have only ever 'sponged' off of England.


    Ah, fair enough.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    I think all countries would be better of without the Union, it's such a throwback to the old colonial days, definately not what we need or want in a modern world.



    Maybe they would have been, years ago. But for centuries their economies and industry have been propped up with British money. I doubt any country with the exception of England would fair particularly well at all without the Union, at least not without considerable financial support.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    Look at the Republic of Ireland, hardly any natural resources yet has an one of the best economies in the world. I think all countries would be better of without the Union, it's such a throwback to the old colonial days, definately not what we need or want in a modern world.
    Ireland's just relied on a different Union instead. The European Union. As I understand it, Ireland have done pretty well out of being a member of the EU.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    I don't see how Scotland would be worse off either.

    Look at the Republic of Ireland, hardly any natural resources yet has an one of the best economies in the world. I think all countries would be better of without the Union, it's such a throwback to the old colonial days, definately not what we need or want in a modern world.

    I think the concept of pooling resources together and working together is a good one and we are all better off for it. Same with the EU as IWS pointed out. Imagine a world where we aren't nationalists and all resources are just pooled. Of course money would exist and trade and barter will go on but there would be no issue for you to get cancer drugs whether you lived in New York or Mozambique. Or food. Or water, even.

    The union is more of the same in my opinion, we're just pooling our resources together because we are stronger together than we are divided, or the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

    So many people get hung up on flags and nationalistic crap like that they miss the big picture. Look at star trek and how they handle Earth, it is just 'home'. No such thing as Russia or America trying to look tough. The worst thing is, is that its not an impossible fantasy. All religions are reconciable. They 'fit' together (except maybe the extreme ones). All countries are the same. If everyone accepted a little compromise, if everyone accepted that the person living down the road might have a different accent or come from a different part of the world then we would all be better off.

    It wont happen though, thats just the way the world works. Everyone likes to have their team and stick by it.
Sign In or Register to comment.