"Nurses are sick of parking fiasco" (The Argus, September 27) raises a number of issues that need clarification.

The number of car parking spaces available for staff on the Royal Sussex County

Hospital site was set by Brighton and Hove City Council - as a condition when granting planning permission for the Millennium Wing - not the trust.

There are 689 car parking spaces on the site. The ratio of staff spaces to patient spaces was set by the council at 55:45 per cent.

In effect, this means we have 275 spaces for more than 3,000 staff. It is evident some form of rationing has had to be devised. We believe we have reached a fare apportionment of the available spaces based on priority and not, as the article suggested, on "rank".

To qualify for a car parking pass, a member of staff must meet a range of criteria designed to ensure the functioning of the hospital and care of patients is not compromised. Thus, staff who may need to attend the hospital for a patient emergency are given priority.

Despite issuing a full quota of permits to staff, we still have 255 staff who meet the criteria for a permit but no passes are available.

As a trust, we have considered (and are still considering) local solutions, such as park and ride and inter-site transport but, as yet, no workable and affordable remedy has been found.

-Mark Dunnett, Security and Risk Manager, Brighton Health Care NHS Trust