Car Sharing at The Great Western Hospital

Background

• The Great Western Hospital is a District General Hospital performing 35,000 planned operations and 247,214 outpatients appointment plus emergency treatment in the year 09/10.

• There are 3000+ Great Western Hospital staff who are based on the site.

• There are then another two Trusts who have patients and staff, plus contract staff, a crèche and staff accommodation block on the site.

Background• There are approx 1800 car parking spaces on the

site.• These are split roughly 600 visitor and 1200 staff

parking.• There are approx 3500 staff parking permits in

circulation at the moment.• There are 14 Thamesdown buses coming onto

site an hour at peak times, plus long distance services.

• There is a cycle path/pavement connecting the hospital with local residential areas and the Town Centre.

Current Situation on a Bad Day

• During non holiday periods the staff car parks are full by 9.30am

• Staff arriving after this time start to park in visitor spaces there by reducing visitor car parking.

• By about 10.30 visitors attending the site for out patient appointments struggle to park – increases anxiety and causes disruption to clinics.

• Staff arriving for the late shift about 13.30 struggle to park, so are late to the ward causing delays in staff hand over and stress.

• This delay means that spaces are not freed up for other staff arriving for work.

• 14.30 visiting starts and at its worst the site is gridlocked and traffic is queuing onto the main roads. This has the potential to delay blue light traffic reaching the site.

Impacts• Staff do not like working the late shift as they will

struggle to park. • Staff witnessed having breakfast in their cars once they

have secured their parking space.• Work patterns are planned around being able to park.• Increased levels of stress for staff and patients.• Not proven, but likely to be higher spend on Patient

Transport as patients off set inconvenience with not needed to park.

• Problem exacerbated by people arriving early to find somewhere to park.

New Travel Choices Policy

• 28th November, after two lengthy consultations with staff a new policy will be introduced.

• As part of the policy the Trust is continuing to offer discounts through the Bike to Work Schemes and with local bus providers.

• Charging for staff car parking will be changed from a monthly fee to a pay as you use charge. For almost all members of staff this will increase the cost of parking.

Restricted Days

• Staff will only be entitled to bring their car onto the site for a limited number of days in a fixed fortnightly period.

Number of days worked per week

Number of days parking per fortnight

1 1

2 3

3 4

4 5

5 6

Car sharing

• Trust invested in Liftshare software to facilitate staff seeking car share arrangements.

• For staff car sharing not only means that you are able to access the car parks every day, but also reduces the cost of parking and commuting.

• For the Trust there is a reduction in scope 3 emissions, and the demand to increase car parking on the site, which is not sustainable.

Marketing • Logo designed and the database was linked from the main

page of the Trust intranet.

• Posters were put around the site informing people of the options available to them for travel to work.

• Seminars were held to assist people to register and Liftshare produced easy to follow instructions.

• An incentive was offered to early budi teams - free car parking for six weeks when the new policy is launched.

• The policy has an appeals process, and appellants needed to show that they had tried to find a car share partner.

Current statistics

• 1320 number of people registered on the software

• 123 number of people in budi teams• Number of match requests sent 677• Number of match requests confirmed as Yes 234• Number of match requests confirmed as No 181• Also aware that there are several car sharers who

have found arrangements outside of using the software.

Going forward

• After three weeks every new employee will be expected to participate in the restricted days scheme. So membership will be constantly up dated.

• Those who have been granted a permit by the appeals board will have their situation reviewed routinely.