Councils back campaigners over hospital Taxicard protest

By John Pring

A local government body has criticised a hospital trust for forcing disabled people to use their subsidised travel tokens for trips to hospital.

London Councils, which represents London’s 33 local authorities, said the Taxicard service was supposed to provide subsidised taxi fares for people with mobility impairments to use on social trips.

But campaigners say Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust has been telling disabled people to use their Taxicard credits for hospital appointments.

On Saturday (21 June), disabled and older people protested outside St Thomas’ Hospital in south London over what they said were the trust’s discriminatory policies.

They are angry that patients who use Taxicard or have their own car – even if they cannot drive it – are barred from using the trust’s patient transport service.

They say the trust is using Taxicard to subsidise the service.

Disability Now understands that other London hospital trusts also use Taxicard to subsidise their passenger transport services.

The protesters collected more than 300 signatures on Saturday in support of their campaign.

A London Councils’ spokesman said: “The Taxicard is intended to provide people who have serious mobility impairment and difficulty in using public transport with subsidised social trips. Currently, health-related trips are not allowed under the scheme.

“However, we are more than happy to consider offering hospital-related trips under the scheme – provided that Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust covers the costs for providing them to users.”

He added: “If they are prepared to pay for it – brilliant. But at the moment it is not the agreement.”

Transport for All – the accessible transport-users charity, which organised the protest – said the hospital had now agreed to set up a meeting with its director of operations over the issue.

A trust spokesman said: “Free patient transport is provided to patients who require assistance from a trained driver during their journey to the trust’s hospitals, or to those who are too frail or infirm to use public transport and have no relatives or friends able to support them to their appointment.

“Patients who hold Taxicards have demonstrated independent mobility and an ability to travel in licensed London taxis. This means they are not eligible for hospital patient transport.”

But he was unable to say whether the trust had told disabled patients to use their Taxicard for trips to the hospital.
25 June, 2008