The UK’s national health service, the NHS, is one of the largest single-payer healthcare systems in the world. It is an enormous, multi-faceted organization with innumerable interconnected parts and pieces. It sees an incredible amount of money fed through it, with vast amounts of resources being used to support and maintain it.
Read Also: Hospitals of the Future Will Be Smart and Decentralized
The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. Activists and conservation groups across the world are crying out for urgent action, and we’re all being urged to do our part before it’s too late. Organizations, large and small,l also need to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint and work towards an eco-friendly world. The NHS is no exception. What does it mean for it to go green? Let’s find out.
Recycling
Effective and efficient recycling is one of the key goals the NHS is looking to achieve in an effort to go green. According to research, the NHS produces up to 600,000 tonnes of waste every year, with only around 5% of this being recycled.
This is an area that needs work, Recycling has been proven to benefit the environment by cutting emissions and energy consumption. Be it paper, food, or equipment, the NHS will need to optimize its recycling strategy before it can go green.
But while sterilizing equipment for reuse can be extremely helpful for minimizing a hospital’s carbon footprint, it is also unfeasible in a wide range of instances. From PPE to medical retractors, there are plenty of cases where single-use plastics and other materials are the safer and more cost-effective option for hospitals, where the priority will always lie with the patient’s safety.
Energy Consumption
Studies have revealed that the NHS uses around £600 million worth of energy each year, in turn contributing to about 22% of the UK’s total carbon footprint. For the NHS to go green, it’s going to have to undergo a major overhaul of its design and operation to reduce its energy consumption.
While the use of renewable energy sources is vital to cut consumption and reduce the damage caused by traditional fossil fuels, experts have argued that the NHS must first improve the design and function of its buildings, lighting and heating systems, and control systems, to truly see a significant reduction in its energy usage.
Why Is This Important?
Activists argue that climate change should be at the forefront of everyone’s minds, and that is the single biggest crisis we’ve ever faced. The effects of climate change are undeniable, we are all already beginning to see extreme weather conditions as a result of human activity.
For a healthcare provider like the NHS, illnesses and conditions caused by climate change and emissions only work to put further pressure on health services. It does seem slightly ironic, then, that the NHS is such a major contributor to environmental damage.
Conclusion
The NHS faces a monumental challenge in its effort to go green. It will require a total overhaul of systems and processes that have been in place for decades, a task that will take time as well as money. However, we are already seeing the harm climate change is capable of causing, so, for its own sake as well as ours, the NHS needs to act fast and go green.
References
Department of Health and Social Care. (2013, November 8). New NHS efficiency schemes set to save £13.7 million per year on hospital energy bills. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-nhs-efficiency-schemes-set-to-save-137-million-per-year-on-hospital-energy-bills
