The Disability Discrimination Act and hospital car parking charges
Cancer patients travel to hospital 53 times on average during what is often life-saving treatment yet far too many are forced to pay for car parking. This is despite having no option but to travel by car because of the effects of treatment.
Macmillan has been campaigning to stop this immoral practice as part of our Better Deal campaign to tackle the financial hardship faced by cancer patients and their families.
With the backing of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), we have written to the chief executives and chairmen of Primary Care Trusts and Health Boards across Great Britain to ask them to review their car parking policy in order to comply with new anti-discrimination legislation.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (DDA), which comes into force in December 2006, hospitals will have to review policies which treat disabled people unfairly. Cancer patients are classified as disabled from the point of diagnosis under the DDA.
The new law also says that hospitals must consult local disabled people. Macmillan wants cancer patients and their families to make sure their voices are heard by hospitals now.
What does the new law say?
The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 includes a new legal duty on all public bodies called the Disability Equality Duty (DED). This new duty comes into force from December 2006.
The Disability Equality Duty requires organisations across the public sector (including hospitals, local and central government, schools and colleges) to be proactive in ensuring that disabled people are treated fairly. Being treated fairly can mean being treated more favourably than non-disabled people.
Over the next few months hospitals will be drawing up plans to meet the new duty called Disability Equality Schemes.
What do we want to happen?
We want any hospital that charges cancer patients for car parking to undertake a Disability Impact Assessment (DIA) of their car parking policy. We then want them to take appropriate steps to alleviate any negative impact on cancer patients if the DIA confirms that disabled people are being treated unfairly. This could be as simple as giving cancer patients who travel regularly to hospital for treatment a voucher to exempt them from car parking charges.
We have also written to Patient Involvement Groups to ask them to ensure that their hospital undertakes a Disability Impact Assessment of their car parking policy and will be monitoring the situation across Great Britain over the coming months.
Read Macmillan’s letter to chief executives and chairmen of Primary Care Trusts and Health Boards [PDF, 22 Kb]
If you would like to use a template letter when writing to your hospital to raise this issue you can download one here.
Information for journalists
Journalists wanting more information should contact Kirsty Warwick at the Macmillan Cancer Support press office on 020 7840 7808 (out of hours: 07801 307068) or email kwarwick@macmillan.org.uk