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

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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

Campaign for equity of tariffs for remote consultations

This is just a short brief to let you know about the ongoing work the UK Green Nephrology group has been undertaking on tariffs for remote clinic consultations.

Many renal units operate over wide geographical areas, providing specialist services for populations far beyond their own hospital’s immediate catchment area. Intuitively, for such a results-driven specialty, the concept of remote clinic consultations – either by phone or video-link - ticks many boxes in the sustainability agenda whilst also carrying the potential to deliver care close to home without the associated carbon impact of staff travel...

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

Project update: Green Guide for renal units

The Green Nephrology Advisory Group recently voted on the top two projects to take forward in 2015-16. One of the two chosen was the development of a "Green Guide" for new facilities.

New Green Nephrology patient leaflet published on NHS Sustainability Day

What is Green Nephrology, why is it important to kidney patients, and how can patients, carers and local Kidney Patients' Associations get involved? CSH, the National Kidney Federation and members of this Network have been working together on a Green Nephrology patient leaflet, published today - NHS Sustainability Day 2015.

Green Nephrology patient leaflet

What is Green Nephrology, why is it important to kidney patients, and how can patients, carers and local Kidney Patients' Associations get involved?

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare & NKF

February, 2015

NHS Sustainability Day - 26 March

26th March is NHS Sustainability Day 2015 - http://www.nhssustainabilityday.co.uk/

Draft patient leaflet on Green Nephrology - comments invited!

Members of the Green Nephrology Network have been collaborating with the National Kidney Federation to develop an information leaflet for patients

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.

Pages

Browse this Networks's Resources in the Resource Library

The carbon footprint of waste streams in a UK hospital

This article by CSH's Sustainable Surgery Fellow, Chantelle Rizan, and co-authors, provides greenhouse gas emission factors for the different healthcare waste streams in the UK.

Highlights:

Journal of Cleaner Production

December, 2020

Environmental impact of PPE in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic

Article: Environmental impact of Personal Protective Equipment supplied to health and social care services in England in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chantelle Rizan, Malcolm Reed, Mahmood F Bhutta

Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

December, 2020

The environmental footprint of health care: a global assessment

Background: Health-care services are necessary for sustaining and improving human wellbeing, yet they have an environmental footprint that contributes to environment-related threats to human health.

July, 2020

Recording: National Allied Health Professions Sustainability Webinar

This is a recording of the AHP Sustainability webinar from June 18th 2020, part of the National Allied Health Professions fornightly webinar series.

June, 2020

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

Health Care’s Climate Footprint Report HCWH / ARUP

Health Care’s Climate Footprint: How the Health Sector Contributes to the Global Climate Crisis and Opportunities for Action.

September, 2019

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

Sustainability in Quality Improvement learning resources

Sustainability has been recognised as a domain of quality in healthcare, and building it into quality improvement (QI) is a practical way to drive incremental change towards a more ethical, sustainable health system.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

March, 2017

We're hiring! QI Education Fellow 2021-22

CSH is seeking to appoint a qualified health professional to an Education Fellowship, working on a project to support the inclusion of sustainability in quality improvement education for undergraduate medical students, postgraduate doctors and other health professionals.