Patients, visitors and staff face paying more to park at a Norfolk hospital.

From June 1, the cost of a two hour stay at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn will go up from £2 to £2.60 - a 30pc increase.

The charge for each extra hour will increase from £1 to £1.30, increasing the price of a four hour stay from £4 to £5.20 and eight hours from £8 to £10.40. A weekly ticket will go up from £22 to £28.

Staff parking charges will also increase from June 1. Those on the lowest salaries will see their parking fees increase by £1.02 a month in the first year. The increases rise according to earnings, with consultants and executive directors seeing an increase of £19.04 per month in 2018/19.

The hospital said parking charges for patients and visitors hade not changed since April 2016 and staff charges had not increased since 2012.

It added there will be no further increases to patient and visitor parking charges until April 2021.

The hospital trust said car park income supports costs and improvements to car parking, with any surplus going to support patient care at the hospital.

Jon Green, its chief executive, said: 'Increases to car parking charges are never going to be popular but these rises have become necessary as a traffic management measure driven by both the current pressure our car park is under and in planning for the anticipated increase in attendances expected over the next three years.

'We are increasing the number of spaces where we can, and the Trust needs to both create capacity for parking on site and continue to strongly encourage more patients and visitors to use public transport.

'Whilst acknowledging that public transport is not a viable option for many, we are keen to point out that there are more than 100 visits each weekday to the on-site stop by bus services.'

The trust operates a number of concessionary schemes.

These include free parking for patients attending Macmillan cancer appointments and for visitors to end of life patients.

There is also a discounted weekly car parking available for visitors to babies in our neonatal intensive care unit and a limited number of free 20-minute drop-off/collection parking places near the main hospital entrance.