More than 8,000 parking charge notices have been issued at Royal Oldham Hospital, according to Freedom of Information request data.

The Northern Care Alliance, which runs the hospital as well as Salford Royal Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary and Fairfield General Hospital, revealed the figure in response to a request from a member of the public.

The data shows that the parking fines issued at the Royal Oldham site were by far the highest since the current parking contract began in March 2020.

A total of 8,172 parking charge notices have been issued at Royal Oldham.

A combined total was given for Fairfield General Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary, with 2,830 notices issued.

Salford Royal had the least, at 543.

This means Royal Oldham had more parking notices than all the other hospitals combined.

The totals included ‘no charge’ warning notices.

Parking ‘nightmare’

Beth Slater, from Hathershaw, has to regularly make trips to Royal Oldham with her one-year-old son, who is suspected to be autistic.

The 33-year-old says problems with parking have led to her leaving the car at home, adding: “It’s a nightmare. I’ve been a lot in the last couple of years, because I had a baby in 2021.

“Quite often I wouldn’t take the car with me, because even if I did find a parking space – which was rare – I couldn’t even get out the car anyway, being heavily pregnant.

“Now it’s toddler phase, we’ve had to do a lot of A&E visits, and it’s added stress. When you’re trying to rush a kid to hospital and you can’t get parked.

“I sometimes struggle to pay when I’m there, there never seems to be any working machines. The machine in the first car park doesn’t work, and the one machine in the second car park is quite a long walk to try and pay – especially with a baby.”

When issued at Royal Oldham, a parking charge notice costs £70, but is reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days of the notice being issued.

Safety a ‘priority’

The Northern Care Alliance says it retains an income from the tickets, if any remains after processing costs, such as staffing and parking application processing costs, are deducted by operator Open Parking.

A Northern Care Alliance spokesperson said: “Our hospitals are busy sites, it is important that we manage the parking available to ensure fairness and transparency with the safety of our patients and colleagues being a priority.

“We issue parking charge notices (PCN) for any breaches in parking, this includes ‘no charge’ warnings and work with our contractor who administers and processes these on our behalf.

“A majority of the parking at The Royal Oldham Hospital is open access, a PCN is issued when a vehicle is causing a safety or access issue."