Sustainability - Making the NHS Greener
Announced January 2025 we have achieved the Bronze Award in the "Green Impact for Health Toolkit" for sustainability. This toolkit helps sugeries make small changes to reduce their carbon footprint.
A big thank you to Dr K Benge for guiding us to this achievement.
The teams at Trinity Court & Claverdon Surgeries continue to work towards our Silver Award
Recently climate change has become a big issue in both our personal and professional lives and I think nearly all of us now do not deny that climate change is real and we are at a crisis point. If we don’t make changes now, the world will be a very different place for our children’s generation and their children’s generation.
Since October 2023, I have been involved with a fellowship program, supported by our ICB (integrated care board overseeing healthcare in Coventry and Warwickshire). This has allowed me to spend time working specifically towards projects to bring the NHS closer to Net zero.
We are the first healthcare system in the world to commit to reaching Net Zero and we aim to do this by 2040 which is not very far away now.
Primary care (general practice) is quite a unique area of healthcare in that each practice is run, under generalised guidance, but by a group of partners as an individual business. This year I have tried to look at ways that Trinity Court Surgery specifically can reduce its carbon footprint including recycling more, changing the way we prescribe which might mean using less liquid medicines and more tablets, medicines that use less packaging, less prescribing, specifically with inhalers for asthma and COPD. There are certain inhalers which have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than others. Obviously the priority has to be healthcare and making sure you, as our patients, have the best quality of life and medicines that work for you without causing side-effects. If we can do this but in a way that is also better for the environment then this is a win-win situation.
One thing that you can do as patients is to only order what you need in order to reduce waste. One of the biggest insults on our environment is medicines waste.
Medicines
Medications account for approximately 25% of emissions in the NHS. Inhalers, as used for Asthma and COPD, alone account for 3% of these emissions.
As patients you can reduce medication wastage by only ordering what you need and checking your medications at the pharmacy before you leave so that anything that is not correct or not needed you can return so it is not wasted. Any medication, including inhalers, you don’t need should be returned to the pharmacy for appropriate disposal rather than putting them in the bin for landfill.
I looked at the medicine that had been wasted and returned to our dispensary in Claverdon over a period of two weeks and there were enough tablets, packets, plastic cartridges to cover the entire table in the coffee room. If this is happening every two weeks imagine not only the wasted cost to the NHS but also how much ends up in landfill and then contaminates the environment that our children and pets walk-through and our farm animals live in and eat.
Patients can now recycle their empty sanofi/ novo nordisk pens. There is a box at reception at both TCS and Claverdon. However patients can also order their own box via this link https://order-form.pen-cycle.co.uk/
Green Impact for health toolkit
The Green impact for health toolkit was set up by students organising for sustainability to help surgeries focus on all the small changes they can make to improve their carbon footprint. It is a toolkit broken down into small targets that helps practices focus on the changes they can make without being overwhelming. Things like being a safe surgery where anyone can register to access healthcare, supporting breastfeeding, using lower carbon means of transport, recycling, using less paper, using fairtrade products, promoting greener prescribing practices and where possible using renewable energy sources. By completing actions you gain points towards bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond awards.
Trinity Court Surgery has signed up to the green impact for health toolkit and have achieved enough points for a Bronze award and continue to make changes working towards a Silver award.
Kidzmed project
In general practice we often prescribe short-term (and sometimes longer term) medications to children. There are many advantages to being able to swallow tablets rather than liquids.
Liquid suspensions often taste horrible, have lots of added sugar and sometimes need large volumes
Liquids often have a shorter shelf life and need to be stored in the fridge making them less environmentally friendly
Sometimes liquids can be more difficult to source and can be in short supply
When compared to tablets liquid preparations and significantly more expensive
Kidzmed started as a project at the Great North Childrens Hospital where children needing long-term medications for HIV were taught how to safely swallow their medication which only came in tablet form. They trained 23 children with just one training session and found that adherence to their treatment improved and hence their medical care was better.
More information online can be found here: https://www.nenc-healthiertogether.nhs.uk/parentscarers/medicine-children/pill-swallowing-kidzmed
