Hospital workers are outraged after it was revealed that they paid nearly £200,000 in parking fees to Croydon NHS Trust last financial year.

NHS figures show the trust took in £178,000 in the year to March from charges and penalties incurred by staff parking across all its sites.

Across England, NHS Trusts made a combined total of almost £70 million from staff parking charges over the same period.

Unite, a union which represents around 100,000 health workers, has slammed the "scandalous" figures, which it said amounted to a "tax on hard-pressed" employees.

Unite regional officer Steve O’Donnell said: “It is a scandal that staff working at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust have been used as a milch cow by the management.

“This is an outrageous and unscrupulous ‘tax on work’ for those health staff who come into work 365 days a year to look after the sick, injured and vulnerable.

“I think that the residents of Croydon will be appalled at the way that dedicated and often low paid staff are being used as an additional income stream by the trust’s bosses.

“The government continues to underfund the NHS and this means that trusts are casting around to gain extra income, but it should not be at the expense of their own workforce.

“Recently, the health unions secured a pay deal for NHS staff which will see most staff receive a rise of 6.5 per cent over the next three years.

“You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out that car parking charges will seriously erode that pay increase.

“Unite’s policy is that NHS staff in England should not pay to park their cars at work – and we will continue to campaign strongly for that goal.”

British Medical Association council chair, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, added that it was “unacceptable” for hospitals to plug financial gaps by charging and imposing fines on staff.

The figures also reveal the trust made a further £686,610 from parking charges paid by patients and visitors to its sites in the same financial year.

This brought their total income from car parking to £864,610.

A Croydon Health Services NHS Trust spokesperson said: “In January this year, we increased our staff parking costs for the first time in four years from £1.20 a day to £2.00.

“These charges were intended to discourage the unnecessary use of vehicles to free-up spaces for those who need them.

“We also encourage our staff to use alternative forms of transport to and from the hospital where possible as the site is very well served by local buses.

“Parking wardens will only ticket cars that have stayed over their allotted time. All staff and visitors in receipt of a Penalty Charge Notice have the right of appeal – the details of which are clearly marked on the back of the ticket.

“We acknowledge that charging staff, patients and visitors to park on site is a contentious issue and we try hard to make our parking fair for all. It is also important to note that money generated from parking is reinvested into frontline services to further improve our care.”