Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 8 October 2019.
Trefnydd, can I ask for a statement on parking arrangements at Welsh hospitals? Obviously, I am aware and fully support the free parking initiative that we have at hospitals across Wales, but this is causing some considerable problems in terms of parking at many of our hospital sites, not least Glan Clwyd Hospital, which serves many of my constituents.
In a bid to alleviate some of those problems, the health board in north Wales has provided a park-and-ride facility that has been extremely popular with patients and staff using the new parking arrangements for that hospital. But it is set to be withdrawn at the end of this month, and I'm very concerned about the stress that that might cause, particularly for those people who are frequent users of hospital services because of conditions like cancer and other chronic or life-limiting illnesses. I wonder whether the Government could bring forward a statement and whether there's any financial support that might be made available to support these park-and-ride schemes, which are, as I say, extremely popular with patients, extremely popular with staff and very, very useful in easing the congestion problems around our hospital sites.