Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the NHS patient, visitor and staff car parking principles are acted on by NHS trusts.

The NHS patient, visitor and staff car parking principles, published on 23 August 2014, ask NHS hospitals to publish:

- their parking policy;

- their implementation of the NHS car parking principles;

- financial information relating to their car parking arrangements; and

- summarised complaint information on car parking and actions taken in response.

We expect this information to be displayed prominently on trust websites so that patients and the public can hold the NHS locally to account where unfair parking charges and practices remain in place.

In addition, NHS England will collect information about NHS compliance via the annual Patient Led Assessments of the Care Environment. The results will be published so that patients can identify those trusts who are falling short.

Guidance to support the NHS in delivering the principles is scheduled for publication in March 2015.