Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has confirmed changes to parking at the hospital after controversy over a scheme that left many key workers struggling to get home.
Jim Crombie, Deputy Chief Executive at NHS Lothian announced the health board would be expanding car park access to all staff arriving on site from 11.30am onwards on a trial basis.
After losing the ability to park on site, many nurses at the Edinburgh hospital complained they had to rely on the park and ride to get to work despite it being five miles away.
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Previously the shuttle buses only ran until 8.15pm leaving many stuck to rely on public transport to get back to their cars in the site.
The health service have now added extra shuttle buses later in the evening at 8.45pm and 9.15pm allowing staff who finish later to get safely back to their cars.
Yesterday Edinburgh Live spoke to a number of hero nurses who felt unsafe trying to get home after work from the hospital.
Jim Crombie, Deputy Chief Executive, NHS Lothian, said: “The staff parking permit scheme at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was reintroduced because the site had become seriously congested due to the sheer volume of cars accessing the site each day.
"This posed a danger to staff, patients and visitors and compromised the ability of emergency blue light vehicles to access the hospitals.
“As we said we would, we are continually reviewing the parking arrangements across the campus site, considering both staff feedback and data collected by our parking teams to help shape and inform future decisions.
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“From today (2 Feb) we are expanding car park access for all staff arriving on site from 11.30am onwards. This change will be on an initial trial basis to understand the impact that it will have on capacity and congestion.
“We have also extended the afternoon/evening Staff Shuttlebus timetable commencing from Thursday 3 February. This extension will provide an additional two journeys to the Park and Ride at 2045 and 2115.
“All the measures taken so far have been developed with the participation of staff and agreement of our NHS Lothian Parking Group which has seen robust involvement from our Employee Director.
"The RIE has a weekly group reviewing traffic management, including this situation, and has just launched a staff survey to seek further feedback. We continue to encourage staff to engage constructively with us, sharing any ideas they have to improve things further.”
