FREE car parking permits will be provided for all hospital inpatients under a future Labour Government – but not necessarily in Blackburn and Burnley.

Health Secretary Andy Burn-ham has promised to phase out car parking charges if the current Government is re-elected.

Speaking at Labour’s autumn conference in Brighton, the MP said a permit would be provided for inpatients for their length of stay, which could then be used by their family and friends.

But because health chiefs in East Lancashire have signed contracts with private firms to run its car parks, it is not clear when this would be brought in locally.

Hospital bosses are just five years into a 38-year contract with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) firm Consort Healthcare, which built the £113million Royal Blackburn Hospital extension, and Catalyst Healthcare, which built the £30million Phase 5 extension at Burnley General Hospital.

A Department of Health spokesman confirmed that the hospitals trust would have to fund the savings itself to pass on to eligible inpatients if it cannot renegotiate the deals should the scheme go ahead.

He said: “It would be for the NHS trusts to manage through efficiency savings, which we would expect to come from back office improvements, not front-line services.”

Both patients and staff pay at least £1.80 every time they park at the Royal Blackburn Hosp-ital, or Burnley General Hos-pital, increasing to £3.80 if they stay more than six hours. These charges add up to nearly £600,000 over the last 12 months, around £337,000 of which came from members of the public, and £250,000 from staff. Part of the haul is used for car park maintenance, with the PFI firm returning the rest of the cash to the hospital.

Coun Roy Davies, NHS Blackburn with Darwen’s health watchdog chairman, believes the parking charges amount to a tax on the sick.

He said: “When you are in hospital you need people to visit, it’s part of the healing process. It encourages you to get better.

“They are just making a profit on people who are ill, the people who are visiting them and hospital staff.”

Jonathan Wood, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust’s director of finance, said: “All NHS trusts will need time to fully investigate the details of the proposals.

"I am awaiting further guidance from the Department of Health and will formulate the trust’s response to this policy once all the relevant information has been received.”