The NHS must play a strong role in both carbon reduction and climate change resilience over the next two decades, says a new 40-page report, Fit for the Future, co-produced by the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) and Forum for the Future and based on the latest scientific evidence on the potential impact of climate change on the UK as a whole, and on healthcare provision in particular, over the next 20 years.
Compiled with input from the Department of Health, NHS Trusts, scientists and academics, the study examines four potential “scenarios” for “low-carbon healthcare” in 2030. It “imagines” a variety of situations, including one where little further effort has been made to reduce the UK’s carbon footprint, and highlights the key means, such as shifting the emphasis from treatment to prevention, via which a “suitable” low-carbon healthcare system can be established. To be sent to every English NHS organisation, the report was commissioned to “help healthcare organisations think about the medium and long-term future”, and “prepare for their role” in ensuring state healthcare provision remains as resilient as possible as the continuing effects of climate change are felt. The economic and social conditions set out in each “scenario” are a result of workshop discussions, and interviews with NHS chief executives, senior clinicians, scientists, business leaders, activists and commentators, each of whom described their “hopes, fears and expectations for the future”. While much of the focus is on changing care patterns, a number of the scenarios have potential estates implications. The “Environmental War Economy” scenario, for example, envisages a UK where tough carbon-rationing measures have severely restricted car travel, importing food has been rendered almost impossible due to high carbon taxation on freight, and food distribution is statemanaged. Against a 2030 backdrop where the “overwhelming focus” is on reducing greenhouse gas emissions “as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and by practically any means possible”, avoiding travel wherever possible, “developing much more localised systems”, and a heavy reliance on ICT (using renewable energy sources) are among the potential radical changes envisaged for the national healthcare system. Stringent carbon rationing policies could also, one scenario suggests, see the “carbon impact” of all treatments known and used both to determine which treatments to apply and where to apply them. The full report can be viewed at: www.sdu.nhs.uk/
