You�ll have to excuse me for a moment. I�m going to have a rant. And I�m afraid it�s not too closely related to no win, no fee compensation claims so I apologise if no win, no fee compensation claims is what you�ve come to read about.

Anyway, here goes. I pay my National Insurance contributions. At the end of every month my payslip arrives and it reveals that a fairly sizeable chunk of my wages have been pocketed by the Government.

Now I don�t begrudge them this. Obviously, I�d rather have the money in my bank but I like to think of myself as a reasonable type of chap and I appreciate that hospitals, pensions and all that sort of stuff have to be paid for.

So I reckon I�m entitled to be a little incensed when I have to pay to park my car in the grounds of a hospital that is actually funded by me in the first place. That�s like building myself a house and then paying every time I want to use the drive. Wouldn�t that be just a little ridiculous?

So why, then, are NHS hospitals, those bastions of healing that are paid for by me and you, allowed to force us to part with our hard earned pennies simply for the privilege of parking outside?

I can understand that it�s not supposed to be healthy to drive everywhere and that walking and getting the bus and cycling are meant to be better for us, but I thought the idea of living in a democracy was that there was a bit of freedom of choice. If I want to drive my car to visit my sick granny (paying extortionate amounts of tax on my petrol in the process, I might add) then surely that�s my right? Apparently not.

These hospital car parking charges are nothing more than a tax on sickness and nobody chooses to be sick so that seems not just a little wrong to me.

Writing in the Telegraph [insert italics] recently, a journalist revealed how he witnessed hospital parking attendants threatening to tow away the car of a man who had just witnessed his wife die on the operating table because he didn�t have a valid pay-and-display ticket. One word: disgusting.

But what about people who work at hospitals? Surely they shouldn�t have to pay to park too? As obscene as it sounds, it seems that they often do.

I have a friend who does a fantastic job as an A&E nurse at a local hospital. Not only does she save numerous lives and experience some pretty nasty things on a daily basis, but she has to pay for the privilege of doing it.

It costs her �15 a month to buy a parking permit and that doesn�t even guarantee her a space. Like most hospital staff, her job isn�t a nine to five one and that means she often has to travel to work and back in the dark.

Now if anything happens to her whilst she�s waiting for her bus on a dark winter�s night, would she be able to make a personal injury compensation claim against the hospital? It�s doubtful but in my book she should be able to.

Speaking exclusively to YouClaim, the medical negligence accident claim experts, the nurse, who wished to remain anonymous, said, �I�m here saving people�s lives, working long hours and earning a pittance, and I have to fork out money from my own pay packet to park my car outside.

�I had to pay out even more when I got clamped last week because my car was just overhanging a double yellow line. Considering why I�m at the hospital in the first place, I think that�s absolutely disgraceful.�

In some countries, staff are able to make compensation claims against their employers if they�re injured whilst on their way to or from work. I�m not suggesting we start doing that in the UK, although it does have its benefits, but I do think that if your firm won�t allow you to use their parking spaces, especially when they do have parking spaces, then they should be liable for the consequences.

Maybe it won�t be long until someone does hold the hospital in question responsible and actually makes a no win, no fee claim against them after being attacked at a bus stop at midnight. I guess it�s just a case of watch this space.

It�s not really the hospital�s fault that they have to charge their own staff to park at their place of work; some say it�s down to the massive shortage of funding that they receive. This shortage of funding and the subsequent lack of staff could be something to do with the number of medical negligence claims that are made against the NHS. But that is a totally different story.

So for now, just remember to take a detour to the parking meter before you stumble into the hospital waiting room to have your serious personal injuries treated. After all, you don�t want to be getting a ticket do you?

This article may be published on another website free of charge, on the condition that a link is provided from this article to our website: http://www.youclaim.co.uk/medical-negligence-gps.htm
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Joseph Patterson, YouClaim are the leading online personal injury compensation claim people with an excellent claim success rate. Call 0800 10 757 95 or visit http://www.youclaim.co.uk/medical-negligence-gps.htm for more details.