Perspective: Can the NHS help save the planet?

14 December 2009

By Joanne Curran, associate editor, MDDUS 

With politicians from all over the planet wrangling in Copenhagen over a legally-binding deal to reduce global carbon emissions there is much hand-wringing here at home over just how Britain will achieve the deep cuts likely to be agreed.

Consider the NHS. With a carbon footprint that could put an entire capital city in the shade, it will likely have a major part to play in Britain’s contribution to tackling climate change.

While the merest mention of carbon budgets, CO₂ emissions and pledges to become a ‘good corporate citizen’ may leave some doctors and dentists cold, it seems the NHS can no longer ignore the issue. A new handbook on the subject was published recently with the backing of more than 20 UK organisations. Groups ranging from the Royal College of General Practitioners, various branches of the Royal College of Physicians and the UK Public Health Association have all endorsed Sustaining a Healthy Future – Taking action on climate change [Special Focus on the NHS]. The message is clear – doctors and dentists should no longer be allowed to dismiss climate change as being irrelevant to the health service.

The guide offers "action checklists"and "practical guidance for NHS decision-makers" on how they can reduce their organisation’s carbon footprint. It offers tips on how to become a "Good Corporate Citizen organisation"; "increasing green spaces and plants within the care environment"; encouraging health visitors to promote the benefits of walking and cycling; "redesigning patient care and treatment pathways" to make them more environmentally friendly; and holding a "carbon audit" to involve friends and family in the fight against climate change.

While some recent evidence might suggest climate change is nothing more than a conspiracy theory, the guide warns that the entire health service has a staggering carbon footprint of more than 18 million tonnes of CO₂ – "more than some large cities". Climate change, it argues, is "the greatest public health challenge facing us in the 21st century". Droughts, floods, an increase in heat-related illnesses, infections, skin cancers – they have all been linked in some way to climate change. But with strong leadership, the report points out, the NHS can dramatically cut its energy consumption and carbon emissions. But can the UK’s largest employer really become environmentally-friendly enough to make a difference?

David Pencheon, Director of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit, seems to think so. He said: "The Sustainable Development Unit is focused on helping the NHS become a leading sustainable and low carbon organisation. One of our key aims is for staff in the NHS to understand the important connection between health and climate change. Then, we want them to act on it. That action will benefit patients, professionals, the public and also the planet."

A report produced in 2007 for the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS organisations, backs up the clarion call for action and says the NHS must, at least, try. Taking the Temperature: Towards an NHS Response to Global Warming showed the NHS spends around £400million a year on energy and is responsible for five per cent of all the UK’s emissions from road transport. It says the NHS will have to work hard to meet government targets on energy consumption and adds to warnings that climate change poses a major threat to the UK public’s health. Its main action points include eliminating the 90 kilotonnes of CO₂ emitted each year by England’s 166 acute hospital trusts when idle computers and screens are left on unnecessarily. The design of buildings and working environments should also be improved to cut energy costs by a quarter. It claims the NHS could save £50million a year on energy bills – the equivalent of building a small hospital or performing 7000 heart bypass operations.

But there is no time to lose. Speaking at the NHS Confederation annual conference in London earlier this year, environmentalist Jonathon Porritt said Trusts must "get cracking". He said: "Every single NHS organisation has got to understand the reality of living in a carbon constrained world. You have to make sustainable development the central organising principle of everything you are now doing."

Indeed, BMA chairman Hamish Meldrum is to take a seat on the newly-formed international Climate and Health Council which aims to mobilise health professionals around the world to warn of the health implications of climate change. The council was set up ahead of this month’s UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and was created to coincide with the publication of a Lancet report about the benefit of reducing climate change. The report warns: "Climate change already affects human health, and, if no action is taken, problems such as malnutrition, deaths and injury due to extreme weather conditions, and change in geographical distribution of disease vectors will worsen."

It seems that, as well as saving patients, doctors and dentist are now expected to do their bit to save the planet too. The question is: how long before the GMC and GDC draft up official new guidance to make it officially part of the job?

Links

• Sustaining a Healthy Future – Taking action on climate change [Special Focus on the NHS]
• Taking the Temperature: Towards an NHS Response to Global Warming
• The Lancet report: Health and Climate Change