NHS funded services H1 and H3

Robin Farmer

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Dec 24, 2025, 3:11:06 AM (9 days ago) 12/24/25

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Arriva have posted the following on their Facebook page:

Services H1 (London Road Park & Ride – Maidstone Hospital) and H3 (Knights Park – Tunbridge Wells Hospital) currently operated under contract to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust by Arriva will be changing.

The H1 service will be operated by Streamline from 5 January, and the H3 service is being withdrawn. Customers travelling to Tunbridge Wells Hospital from Knights Park will still be able to use our Service 277 free of charge.

DerekJ

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Dec 24, 2025, 1:02:03 PM (8 days ago) 12/24/25

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Confirmed separately that the last day of operation for H1 & H3 by Arriva will be Friday 2 January, in view of them both being Monday to Friday services.

Derek J

Chris

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Dec 30, 2025, 4:28:50 PM (2 days ago) 12/30/25

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A pleasant surprise, but one that somewhat overdid the necessary seating capacity on Monday was 6503, also showing the plain "Park & Ride" blind which was the subject of earlier discussion.

The period between Christmas and the New Year may not be the fairest judgment, but it matches my earlier experience: 8 cars in the car park at 11:30am, with three further learner drivers using the vast expanse of emptiness to practice bay parking. The inbound journey bought two ladies clearly travelling together, and I was the only passenger for the trip to the hospital - with 73 seats to choose from, I calculated I would have had 6.5 seconds per seat to try them all for preference over the 8 minute journey.

As a casual bus-only user it's hard to say for certain - it could be noted in appointment letters, for example - but the service does seem to have suffered from under-advertisement by the NHS Trust. A4 posters with details for both hospitals (and thus no timetable), crudely sellotaped to the bus shelter is not the ideal method to advance knowledge, and the posters inside the hospital may be larger, but no more informative. The roadsigns on London Road have been updated to show "Hospital Park and Ride", but that presupposes drivers would be going that way anyway, which seems unlikely for most of the town.