Bringing together patients, clinicians, renal technicians and others to share ideas for sustainable kidney care.

New Inquiry Launched on Sustainability in the NHS

A year after the NHS published its SD Strategy (‘Sustainable, Resilient, Healthy People & Places’) in January 2014, the Environmental Audit Select Committee is examining whether the NHS is set up to deliver on the ambitions in that Strategy, and seeking to identify the key risks and challenges for implementing it and the achievements to date that could be built upon. Written submissions by 4 March are invited, although those received by 11 March might still be accepted.

Reducing wasted clinical resource in the NHS

An Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Report about wasted use of clinical resources in the NHS was launched last month and can be found here. The report states that to sustain the standards of care provided across the NHS, waste must be reduced.

One Small Success - Transport Issues

Last weekend the Bristol Health Partners hosted an event to encourage innovation. We only discovered this by accident and prepared a quick presentation under the Green Prescribing Protocol. This was presented at the last pitch on Friday evening. There were some technical issues but in spite of this we were swamped with people offering help and support and suggestions to broaden our thinking outside Green Nephrology and share the good practice amongst other directorates.

Transplant Research Setting Partnership Survey - All encouraged to help mould research Open to Staff Patients Carers

Questions about kidney transplantation and living donation?

A new national survey has opened, giving patients, their carers and the healthcare professionals looking after them an opportunity to submit questions about kidney transplantation and living donation that they think should be addressed in future research.

The RCPsych Sustainability Summit

On the 1st October we had the first sustainability summit run by a medical royal college in the UK. It was a great success!

BJRM article: Cutting the carbon cost of dialysis: efficient delivery of acid concentrate

The British Journal of Renal Medicine has published an article on the opportunities for reducing waste in the delivery of acid for haemodialysis, authored by members of the Green Nephrology Network.

CSH Publications list

Published reports and articles by CSH and CSH staff, including a number of articles on aspects of Green Nephrology.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

September, 2014

Green Dialysis website

The Barwon Health Renal Service is recognised, worldwide, as an advocate for home nocturnal haemodialysis (hNHD). But, despite the major health and lifestyle benefits for patients using hNHD, we also appreciate the significant impositions and costs that accrue within home dialysis care.

Barwon Health Renal Service, Australia

August, 2014

Upgrade of our Australian Green Dialysis website

Dear 'Green' UK ... This is to let your members know that we launched an update/upgrade of our Australian Green Dialysis website during 'Renal Week'. The website can be found at http://www.greendialysis.org.

Divestment for Health

I'm writing this post to alert CSH members to this motion (#370) which is on the agenda of the British Medical Association's Annual Representatives' Meeting tomorrow morning, on climate advocacy and divestment from fossil fuel companies. The BMA will be voting on whether or not to divest from the world's major fossil fuel companies. Myself and a couple of others have drafted this 2-page briefing document, and it would be fantastic if you could share it with anyone you know who'll be voting at the meeting.

Should the BMA commit to divestment, this would help set a valuable precedent for other groups, building on the momentum created by the Fossil Free campaign internationally. A 'yes' vote would make the BMA the first ever national medical or nursing organ isation to divest from fossil fuels!

For those on twitter, please take a few minutes to tweet before 11am if tomorrow, using the #ARMlive hashtag and the URL for the briefing (http://tinyurl.com/divestmentbriefing). Below are some example tweets to save you time - though feel free to come up with your own of course!

Fingers crossed that @TheBMA members will vote to #divest from fossil fuels & tackle #climate change!http://tinyurl.com/divestmentbriefing #ARMlive
Calling voting members @TheBMA #ARMlive, please vote for a healthier, low CO2 future! Briefing (for motion 370): http://tinyurl.com/divestmentbriefing
#ARMlive members: agree that @TheBMA's investments shouldn't worsen #climatechange & #pollution? Please support M370! http://tinyurl.com/divestmentbriefing

The briefing document summarises the various arguments - both health-focused and financial - in favour of such a move, as well as giving some wider context (an argument made succinctly by Bill McKibben here, and in Alistair Wardrope's recent blog on the topic for Healthy Planet UK).

Please do get in touch if you're interested in starting up discussions about divestment within organisations you're involved in, such as Royal Colleges or even NHS Trusts, it would be great to hear from you.

Winners of last year's SBRI Funding Competition announced

The winners of last year's new Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition to find innovative technology based solutions in Kidney Care have been announced on 13th May 2014.

The £3.6 m SBRI funding competition was launched last October by the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research Devices for Dignity Healthcare Technology Co-operative (NIHR D4D HTC) to help the 5,000 people diagnosed with kidney failure every year. There are currently 41,000 patients in England receiving treatment for kidney failure.

Request to sign an open letter on climate, energy and health to David Cameron

Hi,

Call for help with Patient Transport in Kidney Care

Hello All!

CSH is thinking about starting a project to 1) look at patient transport in kidney care from both carbon and patient experience points of view and 2) run a pilot project in one hospital. If you have any views or experience in this area, please write in. And, if you think your hospital would be a suitable site for the pilot project, do let me know!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Rachel

Right patient, right time, right place - an example from kidney care

Dialysis treatment for end stage kidney disease is a burden on patients, taxpayers, and the environment. The carbon cost of dialysis is estimated to be seven tonnes CO2 equivalents per year. Although we can make the improvements to reduce this, the ideal is to prevent people from reaching end stage kidney disease.

The true cost of water: Understanding the value of water through monetization of risks

Tuesday 19th November 2013, 1:00 pm (GMT) / 8:00 am (EST) Join this webinar with Veolia Water to find out about the growing business risks relating to water use, the need for a pragmatic metric and the benefits for businesses from using water risks assessment together with case studies

Notes from the Green Nephrology Summit 2013

This year's Green Nephrology Summit was held at Guy's Hospital in London on 25th September. Once again, we were a good mix of clinicians (docs, nurses, physios), technicians, patients, industry representatives and interested others...

Green Nephrology Summit 2013 - slides 2

Second batch of speaker slides from the Green Nephrology Summit 2013 now available to download.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

September, 2013

Green Nephrology Summit 2013 - slides 1

Programme and (first batch) speaker slides from the Green Nephrology Summit 2013, available to download. Dr Hugh Rayner is not able to share his slides, some of which are pending publication, but has recommended the following references instead:

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

September, 2013

web-based consultations for chronic kidney disease

This doesn't look as good as the system pioneered in Bradford, but it's still good that other centres are looking at e-consultations to reduce the

SBRI competition: technology-based solutions for patient empowerment and sustainability in kidney care

The Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research Devices for Dignity Healthcare Technology Co-operative (NIHR D4D HTC) are collaborating to launch a new Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition to find innovative technology based solutions in Kidney Care. The focus is on technologies that can make a difference to patients over the whole spectrum of kidney disease ranging from earlier diagnosis and prevention through to treatment of advanced stages of kidney failure. An important goal would be to promote patient empowerment and/or sustainable practices throughout the patient care pathway.

Green Nephrology Fellow in post!

The Campaign for Greener Healthcare is delighted to welcome Dr Andrew Connor to his new post as "Green Nephrology Fellow". Over the next year, Andrew will be exploring the environmental impacts of kidney care and working with NHS staff and patients to improve practice in kidney units.

Browse this Networks's Resources in the Resource Library

Outpatients: the future – adding value through sustainability

The Royal College of Physicians published a new report 'Outpatients: the future – adding value through sustainability' which seeks to re-evaluate the purpose of outpatient care and align those objectives with modern-day living and expectations.

November, 2018

RCP video on NHS environmental impact

Short animation to raise awareness of the NHS contribution to environmental issues such as climate change and air pollution, and encourage health professionals to look for environmentally friendly ways to practise.

Royal College of Physicians

September, 2018

The carbon footprints of home and in-center peritoneal dialysis in China

Chen, M., Zhou, R., Du, C. et al. Int Urol Nephrol (2016). doi:10.1007/s11255-016-1418-5

This study aimed to determine the carbon footprints of peritoneal dialysis (PD) with the different modalities and treatment regimes.

Chen, M. et al

November, 2016

Eco-dialysis: the financial and ecological costs of dialysis waste products: is a ‘cradle-to-cradle’ model feasible for planet-friendly haemodialysis waste management?

Nephrol. Dial. Transplant. (2015) 30 (6): 1018-1027.

Approximately 2 million chronic haemodialysis patients produce over 2 000 000 tons of waste per year that includes about 600 000 tons of potentially hazardous waste.

Piccoli G. et al, NDT

March, 2015

Climate Change and the Emergent Epidemic of CKD from Heat Stress in Rural Communities: The Case for Heat Stress Nephropathy

Article published last week in CJASN: "Heat stress nephropathy may represent one of the first epidemics due to global warming."

ABSTRACT:

Glaser, J. et al, CJASN

May, 2016

Sustainable Specialties video - the Greening of Nephrology

A short video introducing the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare's work in supporting clinical specialties to improve sustainability. This video focuses on initiatives in kidney care, where the approach was first pioneered.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

September, 2013

Case study: dry powder concentrate and disinfection protocol

The dialysis unit in Central Manchester has reduced delivery miles by 75% (saving 8.3 tonnes CO2e) by switching to dry powder concentrate for haemodialysis. Discontinuing morning disinfection cycles has saved on energy and water use.

Sustainable Development Unit, NHS England

June, 2015