A PATIENT support group has accused an Oxford hospital trust of a ‘wall of silence’ over its plans to introduce number plate recognition cameras at the John Radcliffe and Churchill.

Jacquie Pearce-Gervis, chair of Patient Voice, said people were concerned about a lack of news about the scheme, which was announced earlier this year by Oxford University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) in a bid to ease the frequent traffic gridlock accessing the Headington site.

She said: "When people go to hospital they're not very well, often elderly and need to know what is going on ahead of time.

"They seem to want to push it through and there has been a wall of silence.

"We want the trust to just be a little bit more open."

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The OUH trust board approved plans for the Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Variable Message Signs (VMS) in the visitor car parks at the hospitals in Headington in March.

It came after dozens of formal complaints from visitors over previous 12 months.

A spokesperson for the trust denied people had not been kept up to date with the parking plans and confirmed the trust would begin to install ANPR at the John Radcliffe Hospital this autumn.

It will then be rolled out across the estate.

Oxford Mail:

Jacquie Pearce-Gervis, chair of Patient Voice

They added: “We have received questions this week from Patient Voice, and will be contacting them directly to address these.

“Throughout this process, we have kept stakeholders and the public updated. Parking at our hospitals was recently addressed at some length during our annual public meeting. We also recently carried out a comprehensive public survey of people using our car parks to gather their thoughts and questions around introducing ANPR, and have responded to any queries or issues raised as a result of this.

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“This very helpful feedback will also be used by our teams installing ANPR to make sure the process is as patient-friendly as possible.”

They continued: “We appreciate that parking at our hospitals is a serious concern for patients, staff, and visitors and we are working on a number of measures in place to improve it - ANPR is just one of them.

“It is already widely used in hospital, airport, and other public car parks. We expect to see benefits like improved flow of traffic around our sites, quicker access and exit from our car parks, and more convenient payment methods.”

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There are also plans by the trust for a multi-storey car park which are expected to go in later this year, though due to Oxford City Council’s rules this will not create any new spaces. Dr Bruno Holthof, the trust's chief executive, speaking to the paper in June, said despite this it would aid better organisation which would ease problems and the trust was working hard to ‘chip away’ at the problem.