Everyone has to get to work somehow. Transporting a workforce of more than a million people between their homes and their workplaces is a massive undertaking. Additional factors affecting people’s transport choices in the NHS are the shifts and on-call rotas which 24-hour health cover requires and the fact that lots of other people are trying to also get to our workplaces (a significant number of whom have mobility problems).

Car-parking spaces are often like gold-dust, especially in urban locations, and finding the right balance between spaces for staff and spaces for patients is a challenge. The NHS has a commitment to encouraging healthy travel options such as walking and cycling – but are the bus stops in the right place, are the footpaths safe and are there sufficient, suitable bike racks?

Use this poll to tell us your main means of transport to and from your workplace – and use this thread to tell us in detail about the problems you have faced and what the NHS could do to alleviate them.

We have tried to cover all the main forms of transportation, but there is an ‘other’ option for anyone who gets to work by helicopter, skateboard or jet-ski.

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Website Editor, NHS Networks

Comments or questions on this site? E-mail me: editorial@networks.nhs.uk

I'm amazed that the NHS pays so little attention to the way people travel to work. The impact on peoples health from car use is staggering, both in terms of the user (increases in obesity, lack of exercise etc) and the rest of the population (increasing asthma in childen etc). As a service supposedly dedicated to improving peoples health some encouragement to use healthy travel options would seem obvious and yet is completely ignored.
NHS organisations should be discouraging car use by removing subsidies for car travel, reducing car parking facilities, lobbying for better public transport to sites and offering travel alternatives to those who travel for their work such as bikes and smart cars etc on loan for occassional use.

I have worked for PCTs as nurse and manager for a over a decade. I have found that in all thoe pcts i worked for thier estates were spread out, so attending a high number of meetings accross the pct made it impracticable from a time perspective to attempt public transport except on a few journeys where i used the tram or train . As a District nurse for some of those years, it is agian hardly practicle to be out all day on visits, with equipment on a bycicle in all weathers, and those staff who did use bikes or walked, could had limited capacity for workload and where made to feel inadequate and underperforming by managers. Home visits were oftern miles apart due to GP's accepting patients on books form outside the locality.
In my current post i work 25 miles from home, there is no public transport, and again when i get there i am required to do upto 30-40 miles per day travelling around the PCT to meetings ect.

when staff work in a fixed location, where there are good public transport limks then park and ride schemes around shift times, or supported travel permits would encourage people as a perk- often used in the commercial world, might support less dependancy on the car, but forcing staff to pay for internal car parking is hardly a retention scheme.

Renumeration for using your own car also varies, some PCT's force people to have lease cars over 3500 business miles to reduce the cost to the PCT of milage rates (which do not reflect the price of feul or wear and tear), this cost is then passed onto the staff member. Other PCTs only allow standard milage not regular users allowance - agian to reduce cost and make the staff memeber tax liable.

The NHS in comparison to other public sector workers do not provide £ for £ reimbursement of expenses related to work travel -
this is highly questionable and unethical.

Frustrations of working in London : I work in two clinical settings working shifts often finishing after 11pm. I travel to one setting by train with a mile walk, and the other either by bicycle or in my car if I am due to finish late at night. Maybe I should be polishing my halo!!

As a mum who is ticking all the family friendly / work -life balance boxes I am a littel frustrated that the travel payment facilities have not caught up. Oyster cards are available in London, but are not valid for use on 'heavy' trains, only the tube (and I , of course, live two stations outside the tube range, but inside the travel card zone)

I therefore have to queue every time I wish to travel to work on the train (daily travelcard is more than £10) and have no access to any of the benefits enjoyed by those who work monday to friday 9-5.

Does anyone out there have any influence with the Oyster card system who could fly the flag for those of us with erratic work patterns? I would appear that it would not take much to expand the cover to include pre-pay of single day travelcards, and travel on 'heavy' trains within the current travel card zone

Signed - frustrated of Strawberry Hill

Our local park and ride has a very lucrative scheme available for all local government staff, making it a very popular choice for them. The NHS should see if there are ways of making use of the same deals where there is one in there area, I would certainly use it, despite the extra walk at the end as this would be a healthy option and still save me time searching for a parking place on site.

Cycling for short business trips could be promoted by improving cycle mileage allowance.
Although nobody gets paid for commuting, those that give cycling to work a try once often continue to do so throughout the year because they are getting fitter, looking leaner, beating the traffic, feeling less stressed etc.

I just bought a new bike - including all the extras, it was a shade under 400 quid. To that I could add maybe another 2x£50 for a decent service every six months and twelve quid on my household insurance. Total - about £510.

Bussing to work every day would cost me £600 per year so it will pay for itself within twelve months. Heaven knows what that daily commute would cost by car for fuel, servicing, tax, insurance, parking, even without the initial outlay for the vehicle itself.

Plus it keeps me fit, gets me home in half the time that a car would, doesn't leave me sitting frustrated in jams (improved mental health!), doesn't pollute - and I can always take the bus instead if it's tipping it down.

Some people's work patterns wouldn't make cycling a viable option, but anyone who works at single site in the same city where they live should look seriously at this option. I can't see any downside, to be honest.

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Website Editor, NHS Networks

Comments or questions on this site? E-mail me: editorial@networks.nhs.uk

Where the core task of a healthcare professional is to provide clinical care in clients homes a car is the most suitable and practicable means available and the NHS needs to lobby hard for those staff to gain car parking access on busy urban streets. The issue is that making multiple visits and using public transport or taxis creates large amounts of down time which is not efficient.

Where the core task is to be based in one place and to visit one other place once or twice a day (clinic based staff and many managers) then I believe public transport (taxis when shared or to enable time to be used effectively by staff) is appropriate. Some managers do need to make multiple visits 3 or more days a week so I would see a car as being an effective means of transport.

PCTs can use their remuneration approach to ensure that those that require a car for work get support for car parking and car useage but those that do not need to provide a car for work (even if they choose to) do not get these paid for or access to Trust car parking.

There is always the dimension of busy people juggling multiple roles and cars help enormously. Our staff survey shows a high proportion of staff have caring roles for both children and older people and work is just one of the many things they do in the day. Taking a hard line on use of cars could well lead to recruitment and retention problems and therefore not support the goals of the NHS overall.

Its a complex issue!

Our local NHS Trust has just introduced a free-for-staff, half-hourly shuttle bus between its three sites, which should reduce parking congestion and travel costs:

http://www.networks.nhs.uk/news.php?nid=754

__________________
Website Editor, NHS Networks

Comments or questions on this site? E-mail me: editorial@networks.nhs.uk

Our recent (Jan/Feb '06) staff survey also shows a disproportionately high number of lone car users. The real challenge is making alternatives more attractive and viable.

For example, I consider myself Miss Josephine Average. I own a car, I live 17 miles from my hospital base and I have a seven year old son who goes to a childminder before and after school. At present, I drop him at the childminders at around 7.45am, arriving at work for 8.00am. I leave at 4pm, getting home for him at about 4.20pm.

I have looked into alternatives, most specifically that of public transport. If I were to use this method of travelling to work, my day would take this form:-

There are two bus options from the village where I live to my hospital base.

07:28 or after 09:00.

I would have to leave my son at the childminders by 7.20am at the earliest. The bus would get me to work at 08:41 - a journey time of one hour and 13 minutes with a change en route.

Return travel indicates that the earliest I'd get home would be 1930.

This, to my mind is a perfect and genuine scenario as to why people don't choose public transport. With my car, I can get to and from work in around 20 minutes and easily travel between sites. Using the bus, I'd end up with a twelve hour day for which I do not get paid for four hours of. No appeal there at all.

How do other people on this forum face the challenge of encouraging alternative forms of transport for those living within a 1-2 mile radius of their base site?