According to Which?, Hereford County Hospital is 4th= (along with North Bristol, and Ashford and St. Peter’s), all of which charge £3.50 for up to one hour’s parking.  Only North Tees and Hartlepool, Royal Orthopaedic (Birmingham) and Liverpool Women’s are more expensive.  A recent article in the Torygraph bears this out.

Some hospitals charge less, or not at all, for disabled parking - but not Hereford.  However the Conservative Party has stated on its Twitter page: “We will end unfair hospital car parking charges by making parking free for those in greatest need, including disabled people, frequent outpatient attenders, parents of sick children staying overnight and staff working night shifts.”   We wait with bated breath...

Update 27th December: According to the BBC, “Thousands more NHS patients and visitors will be able to access free hospital car parking, the government says.  From April (2020), all 206 hospital trusts in England will be expected to begin offering the concession in line with the government’s manifesto promise.  Those with the ‘greatest need’ will benefit.  That includes groups such as people with disabilities and NHS staff working night shifts.”

Hereford County Hospital states that the first 10 minutes is free, but I can speak from experience that this is insufficient to get a disabled person out of a car and taken safely into a waiting area within the building.

Hospital parking is free for everyone in Wales and Scotland, except in those few cases where older contracts with car park management companies are yet to expire.

According to a Freedom of Information request made in September 2016, “The carparks at the acute hospital site of the County Hospital Hereford are administered by Mercia Healthcare, our PFI Partners.  They in turn contract out to CP+ (Carpark Plus).”

Mercia Healthcare’s ‘Nature of business’ is listed on the Companies House website as being “Other specialised construction activities not elsewhere classified”, with an address in Bristol.  According to Bloomberg, its ‘Industry’ is “Engineering & Construction Svcs” and ‘Sub-industry’ is “Non-Residential Bldg Const” - obviously not much to do with ‘healthcare’....

A ‘Mercia Healthcare Holdings Ltd’ that has the same address as the County Hospital is listed on Yell.

No company information is listed on Google for “CP+” or “Carpark Plus”.

So it is very unlikely charges made for parking at Hereford County Hospital benefit the NHS in any way whatsoever.