A mother had to pay £250 in Ulez fees to take her little boy to hospital for cancer treatment and slammed the system for making the situation more stressful.
Cancer patients and their families have been hit by Ulez fines when visiting hospital, leaving some struggling to afford rent and forced to miss appointments to avoid the added cost.
Hundreds of hospitals were dragged into the net after Sadiq Khan expanded the scheme last summer, but the Mayor of London reassured patients there would be an exemption.
If a patient can’t get to their appointment on public transport, have a compromised immune system, need regular therapy, assessments or surgical intervention, they can get a refund from TfL.
But many have reported jumping through hoops to get the money back – and some don’t even know this was a possibility.
Mother-of-three Jasmin Sarll has spent the last two years bringing her young son to Great Ormond Street Hospital and King’s College Hospital for treatment.
Hugo, who is now four, was diagnosed with cancer in 2022 when he was just two years old.
Ms Sarll, 30, said she has to shell out nearly £100 for parking each time he needed to stay in hospital for three days.
And on top of that, she was forced to spend over £250 on Ulez fees – which she didn’t know she could claim back. She ended up getting a new car which was compliant to avoid the crippling charges.
She slammed the system as being ‘ridiculous’ and told MailOnline that at first, she had no idea she could claim the money back.
Her story echoes the sentiments of many families navigating a similar battle who say the healthcare system should work in their favour, not add financial strain to an already stressful situation.
Some patients have been fighting for their money back since at least Spring.
This is on top of other fees such as parking, with research showing 65 per cent of young people with cancer and families are having to pay for parking when going through treatment.
During Hugo’s chemotherapy, Ms Sarll said she was ‘never once’ told she could claim back the Ulez fees from TfL.
Hugo, from Southminster, was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma but managed to fight back against the disease and has been in remission for over a year.
He received ten rounds of chemotherapy treatment followed by a liver transplant and spent months in and out of hospital in London, miles away from home. His parents would drive from their home in Essex, costing them hundreds on fuel every month.
His parents Jasmin and Michael struggled to afford their rent for a time due to the huge costs.
Speaking to MailOnline, his mother said: ‘We were never told that we could claim back Ulez charges from either King’s Hospital or Great Ormond Street – it would have been nice to know when Hugo was going through treatment!
‘Paying for parking and Ulez added on to the stress of everything else as it was never a guarantee how long we’d be at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
‘If he spiked a temperature when we were due to go home, we then had to stay, which did happen. Which then obviously doubled the cost of parking!
‘Ulez was awful to have to pay every time. I always worried if I forget to pay it, trips to hospital work out expensive enough, without that added on top.
‘I think [there should be] a system you could upload proof of a hospital appointment or something.
‘You shouldn’t have to pay it in the first place, not pay it and claim it back. There should be something in place to make you exempt.
‘I’ve since got a newer car so I don’t have to pay Ulez, but that shouldn’t have to be the case in my opinion.’
Ms Sarll said previously: ‘If you go in the middle of the night, it’s about one and a half hours, if you go during the day with traffic, it’s about three hours [to get to hospital].
‘It was costing us about £350 a month just to get there and that’s before you’ve bought hospital food, extra nappies or anything else. At the beginning we didn’t have a blue badge, so it was congestion and Ulez each time we went up there as well.
‘There was one time that I forgot to pay the Ulez charge, and when I remembered they wouldn’t let me pay after the deadline, so I got fined £90 which seems ridiculous.
‘If you’re already struggling with money, how are you meant to afford these things? A travel fund that covered all of this would mean a big weight off our minds so we don’t have to worry about finances and can focus on our son’s treatment.’
Hugo’s family even had to miss or re-schedule some check-ups because they couldn’t afford to travel up to London every week.
‘He has regular hearing tests because the chemo affects his hearing – I’ve had to cancel a few because I can’t afford to keep coming up every single week.’
A TfL spokesman said: ‘We are very sorry for the distress that Ms Sarll has experienced.
‘We had already accepted the representation she made and cancelled the penalty charges she incurred during these challenging circumstances.
‘We are also in contact with Ms Sarll about the ULEZ charges she paid during visits to the hospital, and will refund these as a gesture of goodwill.’
Rachel Kirby-Rider, Chief Executive at Young Lives vs Cancer, said: ‘When a family is given the news their child has cancer, the last thing on their minds should be how they are going to afford to get to hospital.
‘Yet, we know young people and families face an extra £250 a month on average to travel to treatment – treatment which is frequent and can often last years.
‘These costs are causing many families to struggle, and for some, it can mean struggling to pay for rent, to put food on the table, or pay their bills all while facing the stress of childhood cancer.
‘While young people with cancer and their families are able to claim their ULEZ charges back, there is a lack of communication about what families can claim back.
‘Our research shows 59 per cent of families are unaware that such schemes exist.
‘We believe every young person with cancer and families should be made clearly aware of what support is available to them.
‘This is why we’re calling on the UK Government to take action and introduce a dedicated Young Cancer Patient Travel Fund, which would make sure every young person with cancer and their family gets the support they need to face all costs associated with travelling to hospital for treatment.’
Another patient, also attending appointments at the King’s College Hospital Trust, said TfL has refused to repay his Ulez costs for months.
Westerdam local R.C suffers from Crohn’s disease and has been treated for blood cancer since 2016.
He told This is Money last week: ‘Each month I send off the relevant paperwork to King’s. It worked fine until the TfL repayments stopped in April. I am owed about £530, and I wonder if others are too.’
A TfL spokesman said: ‘We are very sorry for the difficulties R.C. has experienced using the NHS Ulez charge reimbursement scheme and any distress caused.
‘We have returned the funds to him and are in contact with King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to help them with the process for refund requests to ensure claims are properly submitted.’
A King’s College spokesman said: ‘We have continued to submit monthly claims to TfL for patients eligible for Ulez reimbursement.
‘However, since spring 2024, we have experienced difficulty in getting some claims processed.
‘We have raised this with the TfL complaints team.’ She added that its records show that all outstanding claims have now been processed by TfL.
At the world-leading Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, Surrey, there is a similar issue.
Those being treated there branded the London Mayor ‘cruel and heartless’ after a camera was installed just 100 yards from the entrance.
Parents of children receiving life-saving care at the hospital say the despised scheme is leaving them engulfed in ‘a tidal wave’ of bureaucracy.
Families whose vehicles fall foul of the scheme say they are having to fork out £12.50 to pay the daily charge – then have to ‘jump through hoops’ to claim the money back.
A spokesman for the Taxpayer’s Alliance said: ‘As well as making cash cows of motorists, Ulez is yet another complication to our labyrinthine tax system.’
The Royal Marsden is one of 35 hospitals which now fall into the expanded Ultra Low Emissions Zone.
And thousands of patients will be left out of pocket because not all hospitals are processing every claim.
Critics say ‘the elderly and vulnerable’ are among poorer people most likely to be hit by crippling charges.
Transport for London agreed to refund eligible patients who arrive for appointments in cars that fail to meet their emissions standards.
But the way the complex scheme has been set up means patients must claim the levy back from the NHS before the money is refunded to hospitals by TfL.
Some hospital trusts will only pay refunds to patients who have a TfL account set up to make payments automatically – leaving others out of pocket.
It means pensioners, who are more likely to run older cars on their fixed incomes and may have limited access to technology, are most likely to miss out.
One hospital source said previously: ‘It’s a lottery as to whether you get your money back or not.
‘The way it is set up, it’s easy for TfL to take your cash but claiming it back is another matter.
‘The onus is on patients and NHS organisations, already facing a tidal wave of red tape, to sort it out between them.’
The Royal Marsden – which has another site within the Ulez zone in Chelsea, West London – treats 60,000 patients every year.
Under the system, patients who can prove they have a Ulez charge receipt must fill in a claim form when they arrive in the department for their appointment.
They need to ask their doctor or clinician to complete the paperwork then take their documents to the cashier’s office in the hope that it is open after their appointment has ended.
Hospital staff and visitors are not eligible for a refund and families, who have to pay expensive car park charges, say they are being unfairly forced to reach into their pockets to comfort loved ones.
Arin Ghosh travels to the hospital from his home in Kent every day so his daughter can receive chemotherapy.
He described claiming back the daily charge as a ‘bureaucratic burden’ saying the process was ‘unclear, confusing and lengthy’.
He said the fee was ‘the last thing you should have to think about when attending critical appointments and caring for an unwell child’.
David Millerick, who was visiting his granddaughter at the hospital, told MailOnline: ‘It makes me sick to my stomach that this is happening to people when they are already very fragile.
‘Anyone who is having lifesaving cancer treatment does not need to have to wade through loads of paperwork just to come here. It is a sickening ploy to get more money.
‘The scheme should be scrapped immediately as it’s basically demanding money with menaces.’
Mr Millerick, from Oxted, Surrey, said he had to borrow a friend’s petrol car as his diesel vehicle would have fallen foul of the Ulez rules.
He said: ‘This just makes it more inconvenient for everyone. Why should someone coming to visit a sick granddaughter have to pay for the privilege.
‘If I want to come every day I either have to borrow a car or pay the £12.50.’
Nicola Riley, who had arrived at the hospital from her home in Chislehurst in southeast London, said: ‘When you are coming here for treatment the last thing you are thinking about is filling out some form to get the £12.50 back.
‘There is no way that patients should have to be doing that. It is just silly bureaucracy and not something anyone with cancer should have to do.
‘Everyone I talk to agrees that the Ulez scheme is just a way for Mayor Khan to make money and has nothing really to do with air pollution.’
Minister for London Paul Scully who is the local MP, called for the Ulez scheme to be scrapped but suggested that moving the camera or the boundary by just 100 yards would resolve the problem.
He wrote to the London mayor at the time saying: ‘My constituents and I in Sutton are appalled that this camera is still operational with the express intention of catching motorists venturing little more than a hundred metres into the Ulez boundary to visit their loved ones, receive treatment or attend their place of work.
‘I therefore implore you to reconsider your stance on this particular camera.’It is currently serving as a prominent lightning rod towards those who are willing to take the law into their own hands and its removal is the best outcome for all concerned.’
A spokesman for TfL said previously: ‘We’re sorry to hear of anyone finding the process around NHS exemptions difficult.
‘The exemptions are in place to help people at difficult times, and we’re doing everything possible to help and to make the process easier.
‘We would encourage any families affected, who are finding the process difficult, to contact us and we will offer support to make sure that things are made as easy for them as possible.’
