A third of hospitals have started charging NHS staff to park just to go to work.
Charges for medics come despite the Government telling hospitals to scrap them during the pandemic.
Of 212 trusts in England, 71 are raking in a share of £5million in revenue from staff, according to NHS Digital data for last year.
Some staff have reported paying thousands of pounds a year to park.
Rachel Harrison, national officer at the GMB union, said: “This is exploitation. These trusts are grabbing from the ravaged wages of hard-pressed staff who have endured real-terms pay cuts for years. It’s continued practice represents yet another Boris Johnson broken promise.”
In December 2019 the Tories were shamed in to acting on hated parking fees after a Mirror campaign.
Up until then an average hourly rate had risen 13% in five years to £1.35.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Commons in July 2020: “Hospital car parks are free for NHS staff for this pandemic.
“They are free now, and we are going to get on with our manifesto commitment to make them free for patients who need them as well.”
Income from staff parking fell from around £90m in 2019/20 to £5m last year. Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison union, said: “Everyone is exhausted covering for colleagues off poorly with the new [Covid] strain.”
Some hospitals say charges are a part of binding private finance initiative contracts.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We’ve been absolutely clear hospitals should not be charging NHS staff for parking during the pandemic, funding is being provided to cover costs.
“We are also delivering on our commitment to provide free hospital car parking to thousands more NHS patients and visitors.”
