Hospital Parking Charges (Exemption for Carers) Bill

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Friday 30th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) on this important and hugely needed Bill. Unfortunately, owing to the assassins on the Government Benches—one of them has just left the Chamber—more than two hours of time has, bizarrely, been taken up, and I do not think that I will be able to go into all the important issues that I wished to raise. People are concerned about this procedure. A lot of people, including my constituents, are looking forward to the consequences of what happens today, so I will certainly not take up as much time as that taken by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

This is an important issue, as I know from my experiences over the past six years or so. Having suffered from renal failure and been in hospital on dialysis, I saw a lot of other people like me. On average, a person on dialysis spends at least five hours in hospital, and they mostly need some sort of support, including from carers who incur huge costs. That is three times a week on a regular basis. On top of that, those on dialysis have to come to hospital for the other procedures—blood tests and so on—that are required. That is just one group of people who need the service on a regular basis, but many other patients with long-term conditions need hospital appointments and procedures to bring them back to good health.

The people who support patients have a huge amount of responsibility and they provide a service to all of us who support the NHS and to hospital nursing staff. They do a huge amount of work with hardly any compensation and the Bill would allow us to support them. These are excessive charges. Some sit here and argue the point, but some of the people and friends alongside me for treatment were in very difficult circumstances. When they finished dialysis, they were hardly in a position to walk out on their own. A large number of people required support, and they were just those on dialysis for renal failure.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that carers provide an invaluable service to the people they care for, doing day-to-day tasks such as washing and feeding, and providing friendship and social interaction? All the things they do behind the scenes they do out of love, but in doing so they are working very hard for wider society. As that society, we should, in turn, support them.