HARD-PRESSED health chiefs have promised to do everything they can to alleviate the parking problems at the region’s biggest hospital amid concerns they are putting lives at risk.

NHS Borders chairman John Raine was this week forced to apologise to local residents at a public meeting in Darnick after it was claimed staff at nearby Borders General Hospital had turned their village into a “giant overspill car park”.

He heard they were being forced to walk on the road by cars parked on pavements, which were blocking the entrances to their homes and restricting access for buses and emergency vehicles, following the introduction of new parking regulations at the hospital last month.

However, the health board has since promised to create more long stay parking bays for staff who don’t travel alone within its newly created short stay car parks to encourage more of them to share transport after they complained of a lack of parkng bays.

And the new Car Share spaces, which will accommodate an extra 70 staff, are expected to be driven forward before Christmas.

Speaking to the Border Telegraph following Monday night’s meeting in Darnick, Mr Raine said: “We do accept that there is a concern in Darnick about parking and we are working hard to overcome these difficulties.

“We are looking to free up a bit more parking space on the (BGH) campus; we’re looking to encourage more staff to share transport and incentivise them to do so by providing guaranteed parking points, and hopefully over the next few weeks that’s going to yield some improvements.” He added: “If the worst comes to the worst we will have to invest a bit more money in tarmac. But we’d rather not do that because there is only a finite amount of money that we have as capital and if we spend it on (building new) car parks we can’t spend it on medical equipment or whatever.” Last month the Border Telegraph revealed that health chiefs planned to introduce a four hour parking limit in two newly designated short stay car parks at the hospital in a controversial move designed to encourage staff to use the car parks further away from the entrance and free up more spaces for patients.

And, it was announced, £90 fines - reduced to £40 to any offender who paid with 14 days - would be issued to any vehicle parked too long or inapprorpiately between the hours of 8am and 5pm.

However, it has emerged that since they were introduced on November 25, only eight of the 89 charge notices have been paid. Twenty-two motorists appealed and only three of them were thrown out, with a further four still be to heard.

NHS Borders chief executive Calum Campbell, who explained some patients undergoing treatment were exempted from the new parking regulations, said: “This is not a money making scheme. It is costing us money.” He added: “We could build a new car park - we are not short of ground - but if we keep building people are going to keep coming in and at some point we will need to manage it.” The meeting heard the new regulations were only introduced after staff ignored warnings about irresponsible parking and, on one occasion, an ambulance was unable to reach the hospital’s accident and emergency unit after a car obstructed its path.

Mr Raine said: “We want to be good neighbours and create a parking scheme at Borders General Hospital that will accommodate all the staff. NHS Borders will do as much as it can in terms of creating extra spaces but we can’t prevent irresponsible parking - that’s a matter for the police.” It was suggested by a member of the public that up to 200 new parking spaces could be created at the BGH if the helipad at the entrance to the hospital was moved on to the roof. But he later conceded that might not be possible following the helicopter tragedy in Glasgow.

Another member of the audience suggested adminstration staff should be forced to park in the car parks furthest away from the hospital, with the car parks nearest the door reserved for clinical staff. It was noted that the administration staff were worst affected by the changes as they tended to work a 9am to 5pm working week when car parking spaces were harder to come by.

Referring to a campaign group set up on social networking site Facebook to oppose the changes, Mr Campbell said: “The people I am being criticised by are mostly my administration staff.” But he added: “We can’t differentiate between clinical and non-clinical staff, we are a team.” The police, who were in attendance at the meeting, urged local residents to report any examples of inappropriate parking to them by calling 101 on their phones.

Local resident Murray Thoms, who chaired the meeting, said: “I don’t mind them parking on the road, it’s when they start parking on the pavements and all the rest. I understand the police were saying just phone them but, in the past, we have phoned them and nothing has happened because they obviously can’t get there right away.” But he added: “I think this will get sorted out. I think it’s early days, I think everybody, the staff and visitors to the hospital, and probably Darnick itself, is reacting very quickly to something which is going to settle down.”