Piers Morgan has hit out at ministers for the “utterly disgusting” move to scrap free hospital car parking for NHS workers in all but "certain circumstances".
The fees were waived in March, as lockdown took hold, after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) provided funding, meaning NHS trusts did not have to shoulder the extra cost.
The waiver also encouraged NHS staff to avoid public transport, where Covid-19 can spread more easily.
But now the DHSC has said the free parking will continue only for “key patient groups and NHS staff in certain circumstances” as the pandemic eases, although no further timeline has been given.
Ministers have confirmed the fees by private companies, which can be as much as £3.50 an hour, or £77 a day at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London “cannot continue indefinitely”, the i newspaper reports.
“For years we’ve said this should never be happening anyway, it seems to be utterly ridiculous that doctors, nurses and surgeons and everybody else in the healthcare system have to pay for the privilege of going to hospitals to save our lives,” Mr Morgan fumed.
He said it was “particularly obscene” during a global pandemic that has claimed the lives of hundreds of NHS workers.
“Are we in all good conscience, as a country, knowing there might be another wave of [coronavirus] and knowing what we’ve put healthcare workers through - knowing how many have died on the front line - are we going to go back and charge them for the right to park at a hospital?
“If we think that is the way our country should treat our NHS heroes, then it is not a country I want to be part of. I don’t believe it is what most British people want, and once again the Government is completely tone deaf.
Health minister Edward Argar said in Parliament last week: “The provision of free parking for National Health Service staff by NHS trusts has not ended and nothing has changed since the announcement on 25 March.
“However, free parking for staff has only been made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers and this support cannot continue indefinitely.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) has said reintroducing charges during the pandemic would be “a rebuff to the immense efforts of staff across the country and the sacrifices they have made to keep others safe”
Mr Morgan compared the row - which since emerging last night has sparked an angry backlash - to the surcharge that ministers sought to keep for overseas NHS employees to use the health service, which was scrapped in a major Government U-turn.
The DHSC would not give a date for the reintroduction of parking charges but said "thousands of NHS patients and visitors", including disabled people and staff working night shifts, will no longer have to pay.
A spokesperson added: “As the pandemic begins to ease, the NHS will continue to provide free hospital car parking to key patient groups and NHS staff in certain circumstances. We will provide further updates on this in due course.”