GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals in Gloucestershire are working towards a greener service. 

NHS Gloucestershire said the teams are working together to take sustainable steps and making links between planetary and patient health. 

Actions such as installing solar panels, using best hygiene practices to reduce waste, cycling to reduce carbon emissions and establishing patient walking groups, which can improve patients wellbeing.

A video created for surgery waiting rooms discusses sustainable primary care in more detail. Central Cheltenham and Berkeley Vale collaborated for the film, which explains how both patients and workers can do their bit. 

NHS Gloucestershire say these actions combined can improve both patients’ health and the environment. 

Dr Katherine Bristol, a GP and Partner at Cam and Uley Family Practice and Primary Care Environmental and Sustainability Lead at NHS Gloucestershire said: “We hope the film will be an attractive as well as informative addition for patient waiting rooms, and it includes an important message.

“We know that the climate crisis is also a health crisis, and that planetary health underpins all the social and environmental factors that influence our health and wellbeing.

“A very easy to understand example of the benefits for patient health would be encouraging patients to ‘actively’ travel to and from appointments if possible.

“Exercise is enormously beneficial for health, and air quality would be improved from not using a car.”

NHS Gloucestershire also said: “In Gloucestershire, 60% of GP practices have enrolled in the Green Impact for Health award accreditation scheme, which lists more than 100 actions to improve environmental sustainability. These include tips on how to consume less and waste less.” 

Taking to their website, NHS England said: “We all have a vital role in helping this change take place and a great deal of work is already happening at a local level, led by sustainability and environment teams, and organisations who can support staff to understand how they can get involved.”

You can find out more by visiting www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs and you can watch the video via NHS Gloucestershire’s YouTube channel.