NHS Trusts and healthcare organisations from across England assembled in London on 17 October to witness the official launch of NHS Sustainability Day 2014, which IHEEM is supporting, and for which HEJ is the official media partner
The launch, held in the Great Hall at Barts Hospital, began with a welcome from Trevor Payne, director of Estates and Facilities at Barts Health, and the brainchild of the Day for the past three years, after which Rick Walker, CSR senior manager, NHS England, spoke on the corporate social responsibility the organisation has to support sustainable healthcare. There followed presentations by the award-winners at last year’s NHS Sustainability Day, including a compelling case study by Lancashire Care Trust, on how its community sustainability programme had supported patients and those with mental health issues, and a presentation by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust on ‘Anaesthesia-related electrical energy use and anaesthetic gas scavenging’. Following a further case study from Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust, Andy Jones, national chairman of the Hospital Caterers Association, discussed ‘the urgent need to re-address the way we source our food and how it is packaged in hospitals’, and Carillion described its work with Barts Health in both environmental performance and community programmes. The presentations concluded with Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor David Walker, explaining how the Department of Health is focusing on sustainability in healthcare, and the good practice examples it is seeing from across Europe.
