Doctors' and nurses' parking bills revealed at Shropshire hospitals
Three out of 10 hospitals charge staff for car parking, new figures show.
Doctors and nurses are expected to pay at 348 out of the 1,175 hospitals with parking facilities, according to NHS data.
The highest average charge for staff is £2 per hour at both the Edgware Community Hospital, north-west London and Birmingham Children's Hospital, analysis by motoring research charity the RAC Foundation revealed.
That is the equivalent of £80 for a 40-hour working week.
The highest average charge for patients is £3.20 per hour at St Thomas' Hospital, central London.
Last month, Telford & Wrekin Council leader Shaun Davies called on hospital chiefs to refund car parking fees for accident and emergency staff as a gesture of goodwill.
Many hospitals have a staff charging system annual parking permits which is paid from their wages.
The latest figures show that overall motorists have paid more than £1.5 million in car parking charges at Shropshire’s two main hospitals in the previous financial year.
About a third of the amount collected by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was paid by staff, with the remainder handed over by patients and visitors.
Guidance
SaTH collected £1,515,578 during 2016/17, slightly less than in 2015/16 when £1,525,640 was collected in parking fees. It was up from £1,289,302 taken in 2013/14. Patients from Shropshire and Mid Wales who use Welsh hospitals do not pay to park.
The data - taken from NHS Estates Return Information Collection - also shows that 132 hospitals now charge for disabled parking.
Department of Health guidance is for NHS organisations to ensure staff can reach sites "as safely, conveniently and economically as possible".
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: "Few parking issues are as incendiary as charging people to leave vehicles at hospitals, be they patients, visitors or staff.
"Many hospitals are on built-up locations, on constrained sites, so some sort of control is inevitable, but this needs to be proportionate and stress free.
"Government guidance encourages hospitals to use pay-on-exit systems. This would at least mean the anxiety associated with a hospital visit is not compounded by paying up front and having to predict to the second how long a visit will last."
