Bosses at Furness General Hospital appear to have been caught on the hop as they struggle to meet the demand for parking.

Did no-one at the top ever foresee this day dawning? Let’s remind ourselves that FGH opened in 1984, some 35 years ago.

Does anyone need reminding how much car ownership and use has increased in that time?

This suggests an astonishing lack of insight matched with a tortoise-like urgency to address the modern demands of its own estate.

Do they need reminding that hospital patients and their visitors are often of a certain vintage with limited mobility. Some could be coping with several health conditions, or anxious that someone close to them has been taken ill. In short, they need a place nearby to park up.

Yet instead of a long-term solution, the short-term fix is the clumsy suggestion of automatic number plate recognition which has only served to further rile and alienate hospital users.

Many staff at FGH try their hardest and sometimes the failures of others unfairly overshadows those who never put a foot wrong. So if the trust is struggling for money to pay for new parking, perhaps it needs to reconsider its enthusiasm for keeping highly-paid medics on the payroll, irrespective of their repeated medical blunders?