I am not sure if you are aware of the anger that this decision has caused to the staff (which includes me) who work at the hospital but it is huge (Re: Hospital staff parking charges, Salisbury Journal, June 10).

I am not in a union but know they are against the charges and have corresponded with the press over the issue. I would like to add a couple of points. Firstly the so-called “banded charges”. If you look at the bands you will see there are three. I fall into the middle band as I earn just £21k a year. To park at the hospital I will have to pay £18 a month and anyone who earns up to about £36k will pay the same as me.

Worse still is that people who earn in excess of about £36k will have to pay just £2 a month more. So a person in the middle band, which starts at about £18k, will pay just £2 less than any of the top earners including top managers who I expect are earning around £100k, hardly fair I feel. Eighteen pounds a month is a substantial proportion of my salary but I don’t expect the top earners will notice the charge. It is like my mortgage suddenly increasing by £18 a month.

A huge proportion of the people who work for the trust earn poor wages, less than nurses and doctors.

Secondly, the money will be deducted from our pay automatically, however there is no guarantee whatsoever that we will get a parking space, so we could be paying for something we don’t get. Is that lawful?

My personal opinion is that no one should be charged to park at a hospital, visitors or staff.

I have heard the trust will even have to employ people to manage the staff car park, something they would not have had to do if they had installed pay machines, which would also mean if you don’t find a parking space you would not have to pay.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHELD

I just cannot believe anything the hospital trust board and its executives say any more. Staff members were told at first that we would have to pay for parking on green issues, but we all knew that the trust has to save £10million this year, and that’s why the staff have to pay, paying to park was never an issue until this saving came up.

Salisbury District Hospital is not like Southampton or Bournemouth hospitals, where most of the staff live locally, SDH has staff who live in Tisbury, Shaftesbury, Southampton, Bournemouth.

Staff can’t use public transport as it does not cover the start and finish times of the shifts, staff can’t car share as they all live in different directions, and not all the wards and departments have the same start and finish times.

This is just another way of hitting at the staff by poor management. Eighteen pounds a month is nothing for those on £60,000pa and above, but for those at the lower end of the scale, this will be real hardship.

The trust hopes to get £250,000pa through these charges. I wonder how much this will cost to implement and police? And they say that they will review it in 12 months’ time, I can tell you now that they have no intention of withdrawing these charges, just like at the beginning when they said it was only an idea.

And at the end of all this the staff will have to pay while there is no guarantee of a parking space. Well done the trust – you’ve done it again.

A caring member of staff

In view of your story on the front page last week about Salisbury Hospital charging its staff to park there. I used to work at Salisbury and have been at the Royal Bournemouth for the past three years.

My message to the staff is that we have had to pay for parking for the last six months at £12 a month for everyone. Saying there is a consultation process is the new word if you work for the NHS. They pretend to consult but then just do what they want anyway.

I can’t believe that those earning between £17,000 and £37,000 will be paying £18 a month, as the lower end of that pay scale is obviously a lot less than the higher in the scale. For the past year the secretaries at Bournemouth have also had to go through not knowing whether they are going to be downgraded, and if they are they will loose £3,000 a year in pay. Once jobs pick up outside the NHS people will leave in their droves. Of course, as ever, when they are not employing administration staff when they leave, they are still advertising for managers at £80,000 odd a year and they are not downgrading them.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHELD

Am I right in thinking that, given the proposed charging tariff, lower paid staff will pay a higher percentage of their monthly income than higher paid staff? I wonder if a fixed percentage rate across the board would be more equitable?

Mr L Moody, Amesbury