The Climate Change Summit: Challenges in Delivering a Net-Zero NHS
After it was discovered that the NHS is responsible for an estimated 5% of the UK’s carbon footprint, it became the world’s first national health system to make net-zero commitments, with clear deliverables and milestones.
Whilst the NHS is contributing to climate change, climate change is also having its own effect on the NHS. 900 people were killed by soaring temperatures in 2019 while nearly 18 million patients visited GP practices in areas that exceed the World Health Organisation’s air pollution limit.
Coming just in time to fall in line with COP26 we hosted two webinars to discuss the challenges and solutions to the NHS’s climate impact.
For our first event of the day, we invited NHS staff from a multitude of departments to speak about their sustainability journey and the challenges they have faced so far.
Our webinar was introduced by Co-Founder and host Georgia Halston, who talked us through our panellists and what they would be covering.
Dr.Lucy Brooks, Leadership Fellow in Climate Change and Anaesthesia, Health Education England
Our first speaker of the day was Dr. Lucy Brooks whom talked us through the multitude of sustainability challenges in anaesthesia, and how it contributes to the NHS carbon footprint.
Lucy began by presenting us with a pie chart illustrating the NHS’ carbon footprint to visualise its biggest contributors.
Lucy then went on to explain the multitude of other factors that anaesthetists must consider when trying to make more sustainable choices such as single use plastic, IVs, and waste disposal.
Lucy explained that she believes that 40% of anaesthetic waste could be recycled. She then highlighted the energy usage of much of the equipment and machinery used by anaesthetists.
She then went on to speak about the varying environmental impacts of different anaesthetist gases. Including their atmospheric lifetime, global warming potential and the reasons as to why some of the more harmful gases were still in use. Lucy even compared the use of these gases to vehicle driving harm to the environment.
We learnt about how some hospitals were wasting up to 95% of nitrous oxide before it even reached a patient due to fault canisters and leaky pipes. Something which heightened its ecological damage as this was wasted. Finally, Lucy ran through some amazing new technology and practices which will be improving this area of healthcare.
Heidi Barnard, Group Head of Sustainability, Northern Care Alliance
For our second speaker of the day, we had Heidi Barnard. Heidi focussed on decarbonisation with a highlight on energy usage for her talk on the webinar. Heidi talked us through the sustainability journey of a fairly new organisation. She talked about how she quickly came to realise that sustainability was not going to be a one-woman job and how she built a team from within. We then learnt about how then pandemic had given the trust the chance to really accelerate its sustainability agenda.
Heidi spoke about the steps that were made to switch over to green energy tariffs and focus on waste management.
Heidi made the point that it is important for people to have an image of a burning bridge in their minds, that we need urgency and for those in the position to do so to act fast.
She then spoke in turn to any organisations that may be struggling with their sustainability plans.
Heidi’s final point was on the weight that electricity is playing in peoples sustainability plans and how this in itself is not sustainable as many NHS buildings will not be able to cope with providing that level of electricity.
Dr. Bhagyashree Meenu Netke, Consultant Anaesthetist, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Our final NHS speaker on this webinar was Dr.Meenu Netke. Meenu spoke to us about the challenges and opportunities that have developed within her trusts sustainability journey so far. She spoke about how sustainability has been embedded in their culture since 2009.
She spoke about how the trust experienced a slight blip in their sustainability journey in 2019 when they expanded. They then had a larger catchment area to deal with which increased their activity and natural increased areas such as energy usage.
Meenu explained that the trust has a goal of reaching net-zero as early as 2032 utilising the procedures set out within their green plan.
She then went on to talk about their departments use of the gas desflurane, linking back to earlier points in the webinar made by Lucy. She spoke about how they decided to try to change behaviours to reduce the amount of the gas used within the trust.
She spoke about a gradual increase in the usage recently which has led the trust to make the decision to stop procurement of the gas. The trust also found gases such as nitrous oxide being used in areas they would not typically be expected to be used and how this was creating higher usage levels.
The trusts next big project has been waste management.
Meenu spoke about the need to pay attention to the behaviour of staff members and focus on education and providing as much guidance as possible on correct waste management to ensure they are moving forward.
Finally, she spoke us through The Royal Wolverhampton Trusts future intentions from their green plan which includes everything green energy, to travel and tourism.
This webinar discusses the challenges faced by NHS staff when driving forward their sustainability agenda. Examining alternatives and enacting change within our NHS will require a collaborative approach and the exchange of ideas. If you would like more information, please contact us.