Over a long period, the Ryehill Health Centre car park was left barriers up over the weekend and evenings when the centre was closed which allows the local community and the church to use the car park, a great service to the community in an area with significant parking problems.
Since the GP practice at the Ryehill Health Centre closed, some other NHS Tayside services still run from there. Recently the barriers have been left down, causing significant issues for nearby residents and the congregation of St Peter’s Free Church.
We contacted NHS Tayside and were advised by the Head of Soft Facilities as follows :
“I have been asked to respond to you on behalf of Professor Grant Archibald, Chief Executive.
I appreciate that legacy arrangements have been in place with the GP Practice, and as you are aware, the GP Practice has vacated the site, with NHS Tayside now running additional services from this site.
The new service model has some services operating over the weekend, and the barrier remaining open resulted in our weekend Out of Hours staff struggling to secure parking at their place of work, especially when they are returning from house calls.
With the operational footprint for the Ryehill site now changed, it has been deemed necessary to leave the barrier down in order to safeguard parking for our staff in the course of their operational response to the residents of Tayside.
Should there be any changes to current service delivery from the Ryehill site, we would be happy to review the situation.”
We responded stating :
"We cannot understand the logic of the NHS Tayside position. There is already a barriered staff car park to the east of the building which can guarantee staff usage.
Exactly how many staff are using the car park at the weekend?
Can any dispensation be made for Sunday morning church services?
Can we have a guarantee that the barrier will be left up overnight both weekdays and weekends?"
The Head of Soft Facilities responded to these questions as follows :
“I am extremely disappointed that the information I have received may not be a true reflection of the footprint of this specific site. Based on your email, I have now asked colleagues to review their position that would hopefully support the requirements of staff having access to car parking to carry out their clinical duties, and provide the community with much needed additional car parking.
Once I have received additional information, I will get back to you in due course.”
This sounds a lot more promising and we hope NHS Tayside will agree to revert to allowing the community to use the main car park after office hours and at weekends.