bemoreeco

Unison has teamed up with Great Ormond Street Hospital in a pilot project to green up the NHS. This is a very good thing. As one of the largest public sector employers, the NHS has a huge carbon footprint.

The NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) was set up in April last year to promote sustainability and mitigate climate change.  Built recently, Great Ormond Street Hospital, possesses state of the art technology and equipment with many specialised departments to serve the needs of the county. But in spite of it being a new build with the modernity that comes with new builds, it isn’t fitted with energy saving devices such as solar panels and it doesn’t even appear to have an environmental policy.

On a national level, procurement is a major contributor to the NHS waste/carbon footprint, but it’s not just procurement that needs an eco-overhaul. On the ground that;

• Lights are left switched on day and night
• Computer terminals are often kept on 24/7
• Office equipment is kept on standby overnight, every nig
• Indiscriminate requesting of blood tests occurs daily.
• The food wastage as many untouched meals regularly go back to the kitchens simply to be thrown away.
• Miss use of yellow bags, black or clear bags bins. Different cost of disposal for each type of bag.

I can hear you arguing that over-stretched nurses are too busy saving lives etc to be worrying about climate change but it’s simply a matter of reconditioning – habit-forming changes in behaviour. Nurses can play a crucial role in greening the NHS at ward levels and I’m not alone in thinking that. It’s crucial to form a deep and lasting culture of waste-awareness in the NHS. Of course patient and staff health and safety comes first.

Of course infection control has to be prioritised but green efficiency awareness does not need to compromise health care. It can actually improve it. In fact, there are far greater health implications if we don’t start to seriously mitigate climate change.

Full article written by and found at Earthpal