NHS staff forked out more than half a million pounds to pay to park while working at north Cumbria’s hospitals.

The trust that runs Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary and Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital raked in £553,480 in the year to March from charges and penalty fines incurred by workers parking across its sites.

The North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the sites, stresses that any money made from staff parking charges is invested back into services.

Figures released by the NHS show that trusts across England made a combined total of almost £70m from staff parking charges over the same period.

Unite, a union which represents around 100,000 health workers, has slammed the figures, branding staff parking charges as a “tax on hard-pressed employees”.

Sarah Carpenter, national officer for health at Unite, said: “It is a scandal that NHS trusts in England have pocketed nearly £70m from staff car parking charges.

“We would like a situation where dedicated NHS staff, who don’t earn a fortune, don’t have to pay to park their cars to go to work to look after the sick, the vulnerable and the injured 365 days a year.”

But a spokesman for the hospitals trust said the income is reinvested to the benefit of staff and patients.

“The trust has made improvements to parking provision for both staff and patients at the Cumberland Infirmary and West Cumberland Hospital. The income generated from staff parking permits is invested back into hospital services and car park maintenance.

“We also have further improvements planned. At the Cumberland Infirmary, work is underway in the main patient and visitor car park to install pay on exit barriers, with the added convenience of card payments.

“Work will also start next week on resurfacing the current temporary staff car park in order to lay a permanent surface and install street lighting.”

The British Medical Association said it was “unacceptable” for hospitals to plug financial gaps by charging and imposing fines on staff.