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!

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.

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.

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

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. 

Bradford and Bristol Royal share the 2013 Green Nephrology Award

The 2013 Green Nephrology Award (for sustainability initiatives in kidney units) went to joint winners, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and Bradford Teaching Hospitals. Both kidney units demonstrated significant environmental as well as financial savings, while maintaining the quality of care for dialysis patients. 

Green Nephrology Awards 2013 - winning entries

Joint winners of the 2013 Green Nephrology Awards - Bristol Royal Hospital for Children for a water saving project initiated by Charge Nurse, Dan Speakman, and Bradford Teaching Hospitals for reduction in the use of dialysate through using the "autoflow" facility on dialysis machines.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare
August, 2013

Don't forget to register for the Green Nephrology Summit on 25 September

This is the yearly get-together of the Green Nephrology Network, where ideas and experiences are exchanged for sustainable kidney care. Everyone is welcome. This year's programme covers best practice examples such as laboratory eGFR screening and exercise programmes in CKD, as well as debates on how to get your clinical director on board, building patient networks, and whether to abandon plastic cannisters of acid concentrate in favour of bulk systems.

CleanMed Europe social media platforms - follow and join the conversation

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Post created Tue, 2013-07-16 18:18 in the Green Nephrology network by Anonymous (not verified)

There's now a facebook page and twitter account for September's CleanMed Europe conference - if you use social media, do follow them for new blogs as they published, along with news items and reports.  Recently published are Rachel Stancliffe and Mahmood Bhutta's blog on whether should health professionals should lead on sustainability and Frances Mortimer's blog on Sustainable Clinical Practice.

You can also use these platforms to make contact with others who will be attending the conference, share your ideas, case studies and as a platform for online discussions about sustainable healthcare and how we can get to where we want to be.

The conference website is at http://www.cleanmedeurope.org/.

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Browse this Networks's Resources in the Resource Library

Green Nephrology review article

John Agar and Katherine Barraclough have produced a fantastic review looking at the impacts of environmental change on kidney health as well as the environmental damage caused by kidney services (especially dialysis) and strategies to mitigate this. 

Nature Reviews Nephrology
February, 2020

Prescribing Movement resource

This toolkit gives you everything you need for a 1 minute, 5 minute and even more minute conversation, complete with step-by-step guides, behavioural change insights and all the evidence to back it up.

Moving Medicine
January, 2020

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

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

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Green Nephrology review article

John Agar and Katherine Barraclough have produced a fantastic review looking at the impacts of environmental change on kidney health as well as the environmental damage caused by kidney services (especially dialysis) and strategies to mitigate this. 

Nature Reviews Nephrology
February, 2020