CHARGING for parking at hospitals has long been a thorny one but it is a policy over which criticism appears to be growing in intensity.

Hospital trusts, of course, have to make sure they get best value from every single penny they spend but the general principle of making the sick, their friends and family visiting them, as well as the staff looking after them, pay for the privilege of parking on hospital sites has long stuck in the craw of many health charities and groups like the Patients' Association.

The issue has come to the fore again in Bradford with the revelation that income from parking fees at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's has reached a shade under £1 million in the 12 months since charges were hiked in 2015.

Bradford Hospitals Trust has insisted that all parking charge revenue is ploughed back into running and expanding its car parks with anything left over then used to bolster its spending on patient care.

And that latter point is the real nub of the issue.

That parking income ensures that car parks are self sufficient and are not a drain on frontline resources is something that most of us would, in some cases grudgingly, accept.

But if the charges are providing an excessive surplus than they must be pegged back accordingly so health chiefs can rightly defend accusations that staff, patients and visitors are not being used as cash cows to bolster the huge spending crisis which has enveloped the NHS.

Parking fees must not become a stealth tax.