Broken appointments a regular occurrence? Is your car park to blame? Discover the steps you can take to prevent revenue loss.
If you provide patient care, you’ll know how frustrating and wasteful it is when visitors are late for scheduled appointments or fail to show up.
It can also be incredibly costly. NHS research shows that GP appointments cost an average of £30 each, meaning that no shows cost the NHS £216m every year. That could cover the salaries of 2,325 full-time GPs! It’s a significant issue for the sector.
Reasons for broken appointments are numerous (you’ve no doubt heard every single one), but have you considered that your car park may be a contributing factor? Research shared by the Daily Express reveals that a third of motorists said they’d been late for hospital appointments because of parking problems.
Perhaps visitors cannot easily park outside your premises due to unauthorised vehicles taking up spaces, pushing up the number of late arrivals and no-shows? This issue is often compounded if you’re based in busy urban areas where parking is at a premium.
The true cost of unauthorised parking
The financial impact of parking issues can be considerable. Our data shows that healthcare providers could be losing £315 a week due to avoidable parking issues. That equates to more than £16,000 every year (based on an average appointment cost of £50 and a car park with 25 spaces).
(How much?! See for yourself. Use our online revenue calculator to discover the true financial impact. Simply tell us your average appointment cost and the size of your car park and we’ll calculate how much money you could be losing out on.)
In addition, patient care is your priority, and this begins the moment they drive into your car park. Visitors may already be anxious about their appointments, so the last thing they want is a stressful parking experience beforehand.
By enhancing the overall parking experience you will provide your visitors with convenient, hassle-free parking – and help them arrive on time for their appointments.
What steps can medical service providers take to address parking problems?
To help you, here is our specific advice for the healthcare sector.
- Determine the cause: Ask yourself if there’s a specific reason why unauthorised vehicles are regularly abusing your car park. Is it as simple as people can park for free in your car park, while surrounding car parks require payment, or is there more to it? We recommend observing your car park for a period of time and seeing if there are any obvious patterns.
- Install clear signage: Use signs to communicate your parking conditions. This could be a simple notice stating “Parking strictly for patients/clients only”. You could also display a sign inside your premises in a prominent position? For example: “Onsite parking is limited – please do not abuse this provision”. You can read more about the importance of signs in car park management on our blog.
- Speak to the driver: If you notice repeat offenders, try and resolve the problem by speaking to the driver. You may discover they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong or causing any issues. If you’re not able to – or would rather not – confront the driver, why not leave a short, polite note on their window screen, explaining the issue?
- Introduce parking enforcement: A permanent solution to nuisance parking is to introduce car park enforcement measures. This typically involves using Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras to monitor every vehicle that enters and exits your site. Parking for genuine visitors can remain free – they just need to register their vehicle online (via QR code) or using an on-site tablet located inside your premises. Your staff, meanwhile, can be added to the parking ‘whitelist’ so their vehicles are always exempt. To deter misuse, anyone who fails to register their vehicle is issued with a PCN (Parking Charge Notice) through the post, so it’s completely non-confrontational.
With almost 20 years of experience and having worked with hundreds of clinics and healthcare facilities, including NHS trusts, we understand the unique difficulties the medical services sector faces when it comes to car park management.
If you’d like to find out more about our bespoke car park management solutions, complete the short form below and one of our team will be in touch.
