Newham Council think of the money

 

The Health Emergency Badge is a concessionary scheme for NHS workers undertaking urgent care in the community. It is explained here.

It is necessary to infer that Newham Council wanted a penalty because the car was near the keeper's work base. One cannot use the badge between two patient visits if you return to base and need to park for 30 minutes, you must find a pay bay or some other place to park.

The rules allow for the badge to be used when visiting a patient. If the patient happens to live  near to the place of work of the emergency care provider that isn't a bar to using the badge. These days workers don't go round on bicycles (Call the Midwife is set in the 1950s) as there is far too much medical paraphernalia to carry. You may have noticed that cycle based paramedics have a number of large bags which are equipped purely for emergency situations and so have a carefully assessed set of equipment. In that case the paramedic will often be working right next to his bike and so the kit isn't likely to be stolen so much, unlike someone going into a home for a longer visit, (although sadly anything can get stolen in 2025).

Hewham Bough is 36 km² which keep you fit if you covered it on a bicycle.

What Newham Council failed to do here was to give proper consideration to the reason for the visit, which put the lady into an exempt position. Usually, these challenges are supported by a letter from the NHS Trust (or similar) confirming the urgency of the visit and without providing confidential personal health information. A council should trust a Trust but they struggle to cancel a PCN even when they should.

An aside about the Health Emergency Badge is that the worker has to write the house number on it and hang it on the rear view mirror. Mr Mustard saw such a badge in his own street a few years ago and was concerned for his neighbours so phoned up to check the couple were OK and to see if he could help. They didn't have a health visitor! It must be coincidence that the Spires Shopping Centre is at the end of the road the health visitor's car was parked at, not near the number they wrote on the badge.

The end.

Come on, push, I've only got an hour.

Baby Mustard

Here is a decision from the adjudicator at PATAS about the use of a Health Emergency Badge which are issued on demand to health professionals who need to visit large numbers of locations in a hurry and can't be looking for change or making phone calls as they are attending an emergency or life threatening situation. Barnet Council have signed up to the HEB scheme.

Having heard the Appellant I person there is no reason at all to doubt her evidence that she is a midwife and was attending a woman in labour having correctly displayed a Health Emergency Badge in accordance with its conditions. Those conditions make no mention of a one hour time limit.

Although the concession afforded by the display of the HEB is just that, a concession not an exemption, nevertheless it seems to me that a holder relying on it is entitled to expect that a concession offered by London Councils will be offered by every one of those Councils unless clear notice is given to the contrary. To issue a PCN and/or to enforce a penalty in the absence of such notice in my judgement amounts to the equivalent of an abuse of process; and in these circumstances no contravention occurs - see the dicta in Camden v The Parking Adjudicator and BHS t/a First for Food Service Ltd [2011] EWHC 295 Admin [2011]EWCA Civ 905.

The Appeal is therefore allowed.

Mr Mustard would be the first to admit that he doesn't know an awful lot about childbirth, his own, the last one he attended, was a long time ago but he does know that labour can go on for many hours and that it isn't without its medical complications so to expect a midwife to be able to deal with whatever emergency situation she faced within 60 minutes wasn't at all reasonable or realistic and simply doesn't make Barnet a better place to live, or be born into. 

Isn't that why the council are there, to make our lives better? Come on Barnet council, get that £7.5m parking surplus out of the budgeted accounts (as half of the income is from PCN) so that you can stop taking these terrible decisions.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

For any health care professional who is reading, or maybe one is a friend of yours so tell them about this, who has to attend emergencies across London and doesn't have a blue light ambulance (although they occasionally get ticketed) the HEB is still worth having as it will drastically reduce your PCN, except possibly in Barnet. Here is a link. There is a modest fee to pay.

A high risk occupation

New signs soon to be installed at all entrances to Barnet

Some occupations are dangerous, here are the top 5:

1. Fisherman
2. Bomb disposal expert
3. Oil rigger
4. Construction worker.
5. Lorry driver

and now to be added to the list, at least in so far as the danger of getting a parking ticket is concerned, we need to add, NHS worker.

Here is a report from a recent adjudication case at PATAS:

The allegation in this case is that the vehicle was parked in a residents or shared-use parking place or zone without clearly displaying either a permit or voucher or pay and display ticket issued for that place. Miss N. does not in fact dispute this but she says that she was relying on her Health Emergency Badge which she clearly displayed. She does not dispute that she had failed to enter the address she was visiting but says that even when she does this she still regularly receives PCNs. She has now provided the address she was visiting and supporting evidence to establish that this was an emergency.

The Enforcement Authority have provided copies of photographs taken by the Enforcement Officer which support the assertion that there was no address entered on the Health Emergency Badge displayed.

The rear of the Health Emergency Badge contains a description of the scheme and conditions of use for the Badge, one of which states

 
"The house number (or flat number or house name) and the street name must be written on the white area''.

Although the use of a valid Health Emergency Badge does not establish a formal exemption, I would not expect any Enforcement Authority to seek enforcement of a PCN where a Health Emergency Badge was being used in accordance with the rules of the scheme. The failure to enter the patient's address means that on this occasion Miss N. was not using the Badge in accordance with the rules.
 

Miss N's account amounts only to mitigation. The Enforcement Authority may cancel a PCN as a matter of their discretion. The Law does not give Adjudicators the power to allow an appeal which establishes mitigating circumstances only.
 

Having considered all the evidence, I am satisfied that the contravention occurred and that the PCN was properly issued and served. I am not satisfied that any exemption applies.

The adjudicator cannot be faulted for applying the law, as that is what they are there to do. They could have recommended this case for compelling mitigation but they have chosen not to. 

 

To Mr Mustard's mind this is rough justice. A badge given to qualifying medical staff to make their job easier is used as a stick to beat them with and as a profit centre.

 

Faced with the choice of a job in a nice warm hospital or one on the road at the mercy of traffic wardens and pedantic council officers, which one starts to look more attractive?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard