NHS Free Parking - our support continues

The NHS free parking search service has now closed

Since April, over 40k NHS staff, health and social care workers and NHS volunteers (critical care workers) have used the NHS Free Parking search facility to find free parking locations across the UK close to where they need to be. This has given our amazing healthcare workers one less thing to worry about by saving them valuable time when they have been focused on saving lives

This collaboration was led by the BPA, Parkopedia, YourParkingSpace and JustPark. It was set up to support the government’s COVID-19 free parking scheme for critical workers with over one million free parking locations provided by councils, many non-council car parks and some privately owned spaces and driveways.

Thank you NHS!

Our thoughts go out to everyone who has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the amazing and brave NHS front-line workers who put their lives at risk every day. In addition, the councils and communities across the country that have worked tirelessly to contain this unprecedented situation. We cannot thank them enough.

Our support continues

As the UK emerges from a period of lockdown, the BPA and its members continue to focus their attention on doing the right thing to help the national emergency, using its expertise and resources in the most effective manner.

Although the website has closed, many BPA members continue to provide free parking for NHS staff, In addition, some have repurposed car parks as distribution hubs for essential deliveries or for drive through COVID-19 testing centres; protected spaces allocated to NHS staff; monitored routes to and within hospitals and for food supplies to ensure that they are kept clear and safe.

Parking attendants have extended their duties to help marshal traffic and assist managing queues at supermarkets and other essential outlets and parking areas - helping communities by delivering aid to the vulnerable and other support. 

Like every other business and organisation in the country, our members are adapting and responding as the situation evolves, but we will keep striving to do more. These are unprecedented times for which there is no pre-written guidance, so it is everyone’s duty to use common sense and do what is right and the parking sector is no different.

NHS Parking Pass

The national Parking Pass for NHS Staff, Critical Care Workers and Volunteers was developed by Government and is administered by the Royal Voluntary Services for volunteers. Other Passes are in the gift of local NHS Trusts or the Local Authorities where they have their own local schemes.

The Scheme was not designed to cater for oversubscribed NHS parking but in the main to enable community workers to park on-street and in public car parks during the lockdown as they supported people who were self-isolating, or staying at home.

As society restarts many local schemes are being withdrawn and the Government is considering the future of the national ID Parking Pass. More details about the scheme can be found here.