A Network for everyone interested in improving the environmental sustainability of operating theatres.

Sustainability in Ophthalmology

In Sustainability in Ophthalmology the Royal College of Ophthalmologists calls for leadership from the profession and the healthcare industry to develop best practice and integrate these into our service redesign. This is a position paper from the College, designed for Ophthalmologists, alli

Royal College of Ophthalmologists

April, 2013

CleanMed 2013 - call for case studies

CSH is hosting this year's CleanMed Europe conference, 17-19 September 2013.

Are online journals actually greener compared to the print versions?

It is perceived that online medical journals have a smaller carbon footprint as well as costs, than its printed version. Subscription rates for online and print versions of most medical journals portray this difference. BJS is an exception to this practice. Reliable evidence is hard to come by with regard to the carbon footprint of print products and downloading journal articles; the available evidence is confusing. It may be opportune for this forum to consolidate the evidence of the carbon footprint of print vs. online medical journals.

Green Ward Winners at the Whittington

A competition including a brief intervention, designed by CSH has had an immediate impact at Whittington, including going from 0 - 60 bags of waste recycled per week in one operating theatre. Hugh Montgomery, climate expert and Whittington clinician, inspired 3 departments to compete for cash and energy-saving prizes which have just been awarded.

Cost-Effective and Sustainable Surgery

The Association of Surgeons in Great Britain and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have published a Consensus Statement on Cost-effective and Sustainable Surgery. The statement is based on presentations, discussions and interactive sessions at a Consensus Conference which was held on 10th November 2011 in Dublin.

Introducing recycling into the operating theatres (Oxford case study)

The Oxford University Hospitals Trust has reduced the amount of waste going to landfill or incineration by introducing recycling into the operating theatre setting. Previously all waste from clinical areas was disposed of via orange clinical waste bags.

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

April, 2012

Lots of sustainability in current edition of AA

Many of you are probably already aware, but there are lots of articles on sustainability issues in this month's Anaesthesia & Analgesia - see:&

Recycling, but what about Reduce & Reuse

After sucessfully launching a recycling scheme in 34 theatres, across 3 theatre suites, we've got a motivated multidisciplinary group who would lik

AAGBI environment pages

The AAGBI’s Anaesthesia and the environment section of their website.

AAGBI

Climate Week: Whittington Hospital Green Ward Competition

"How can we involve clinical departments in our Climate Week?" wondered the team at Whittington Hospital, which has been setting up a series of green events for 12-16 March 2012. The answer: a Green Ward Competition. Five clinical areas - including theatres - are competing for a £500 cash prize to be awarded for the best carbon reduction project.

Reducing the Environmental Impact of the Operating Theatre

This is a poster I presented to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Orlando, Florida in December 2010, following work I'd done in the day theatre suite of Jersey General Hospital.

Frank Swinton

November, 2010

SAP - sustainable action planning resources for clinical teams

SAP is a programme to support clinical teams in taking action for sustainability. Structured around two facilitated workshops, SAP helps front-line staff to learn about sustainable healthcare, focus in on their priorities and put together a green action plan. The action plan can then

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare

February, 2010

Single-use Medical Devices - rubbish or re-process?

In the not too distant past medical devices were re-usable. The increasing use of single-use devices has led to the inexorable rise in the volume of clinical waste. But does this need to be the case? We have a quick look at the issues.

Introducing - Andrea MacNeill

As the founder and principal investigator of the Green-Op programme, Andrea is currently developing a surgical foot-printing tool to facilitate the comparative evaluation of surgical practice in the USA, Canada and UK.

Welcome to the Sustainable Operating Network

Following in the footsteps of Green Nephology and the other successful speciality programmes, SusOp has grand plans for the transformation of one of the most energy and carbon intensive aspects of modern healthcare.

prion transfer

do we need to throw everything away in case of infection?

The Nipper Mountain

Prion risk: where do we draw the line? Millions of nail clippers are incinerated every year across the NHS, as a result of policies to manage the theoretical risk of vCJD, according to Julie Hotchkiss, public health consultant in Wigan.

Pages

Browse this Networks's Resources in the Resource Library

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

Millions of Nurses Call The World To Action #HealthyRecovery

From the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, this a short video (see link below) which accompanies the

May, 2020

Utilizing off-the-shelf LCA methods to develop a ‘triple bottom line’ auditing tool for global cataract surgical services

The cataract surgery audit tool ‘Eyefficiency’ was designed to identify opportunities for sites to minimize the footprint of cataract surgical services and to increase access to cataract surgery for patients worldwide.

May, 2020

Nordic Know-How: Nitrous Oxide Destruction

The theme of this first report in the Nordic Know-How series is nitrous oxide destruction. Nitrous oxide substantially contributes to the climate footprint of the healthcare sector. This report provides good examples on how to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide in hospitals.

Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare

March, 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

PVC Recovery case study - Dunedin NZ

May, 2019

Reduction and standardization of surgical instruments in pediatric inguinal hernia repair

One way of reducing waste in theatre is to think about the surgical instruments we use (or open and don’t use!).

Journal of Pediatric Urology February 2018 Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages 20–24

February, 2019

A new role for anaesthetists in environmentally sustainable healthcare?

Our article published today! "The contribution of anaesthesia to the environmental impact of healthcare is significant and visible, but amenable to change. We believe that this places anaesthetists in an ideal position to lead educational initiatives on environmental sustainability."

C. L. Shelton, S. C. McBain, F. Mortimer, S. M. White. Anaesthesia.

March, 2019

The impact of surgery on global climate: a carbon footprinting study of operating theatres in three health systems.

This (open access) paper compares the carbon footprint of 3 operating theatres (UK, US and Canada). It is really interesting to see how different institutional practices influence the carbon footprint, once again highlighting the significant reductions achieved by reducing desflurane usage.

Lancet Planet Health

December, 2017