Kate Woodhead RGN DMS concludes her series of insights into sustainability in healthcare, focusing on plans to achieve ‘greener’ surgery in the future. She says that enthusiastic champions will be vital to driving improvement, going forward, and outlines some of the key strategies that could help contribute towards a Net Zero NHS.
Understanding that the health of the planet and the health of its populations are closely linked is a realisation we are beginning to come to terms with. Previous considerations in recent articles in this journal have indicated that there is a great deal of work to do, if we are to contribute effectively to a Net Zero NHS. We are obliged by law to respond to the challenge by ensuring that, by 2040, we have achieved Net Zero for the emissions that the NHS controls directly and, by 2045, Net Zero for the emissions that the NHS has the ability to influence. It is said that NHS staff overwhelmingly support a greener NHS — almost nine in ten support the Net Zero ambition. Since 2010, the NHS has cut its carbon emissions by 30%.
Since the publication of the report, 'Delivering a Net Zero NHS' and strategy in 2020,1 good progress has been made. The NHS has performed the first Net Zero delivery for surgery and has launched the first Net Zero plan for the ambulance sector, embedding the response to climate change into the governance and strategy of every Trust. The government has invested £550m in energy efficiency and renewable energy, as part of the government's public sector decarbonisation scheme.
The aim of the report is ambitious, and includes:
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