CARBON REDUCTION AND NET ZERO


such as compassion, respect, and quality of care, and ‘underwrite the NHS’s efforts on the environment’. Importantly, Lord Markham said, it will commit everyone in the NHS – from nurses, to porters, to senior decision-makers, ‘to strive to protect the environment, while of course prioritising the needs of patients and the taxpayer’.


Investment and behavioural change The Minister confirmed plans to bring forward a wider consultation this spring, including on this new environmental value. All this meant sustainability would be ‘permanently woven into the very fabric of the NHS’. Lord Markham said: “The action we can now flexibly take through investment and behavioural change must live up to these values and duties.” He said he would now explain how Government is backing the NHS to ensure that this happens – ‘starting with energy efficiency and savings’. “When it comes to efficiency,” he


explained, “small measures can have a big impact. I’ve mentioned to this forum before the huge savings on offer from things as simple as LED installation, which offers around a 25% yearly return on investment.” According to the latest data, LED coverage across the NHS now stands at close to 50% – over double the figure back in 2019. Lord Markham stressed, however, ‘the need to go further’. With this in mind, he said he the DHSC would be investing an additional £20 m in LED installation across the NHS over the next two months, and funding 48 projects to add an additional 125,000 LEDs across the estate, bringing a great boost in efficiency, and a £5 m annual energy bill reduction ‘for at least the next 10 years’. The Minister said: “This will also mean a


recurring carbon saving of 14 kilotonnes a year, yet this is just the start, and we remain committed to getting LED coverage up to 100% as quickly as we can.” He continued: “It should be highlighted that efficiency isn’t just about equipment; there’s also the critical question of how energy is managed and coordinated, at both a local, and an ICB level.” This was ‘partially about technology, and having good building management systems, but also about having the right people and the right skills, all in the right place’. As of 2023, less than half of NHS Trusts in England had dedicated Energy managers, and there had been very little coordination at regional level. Lord Markham said: “We


‘‘


End-to-end project at Nottingham’s QMC


E.ON has begun a new 15-year energy efficiency partnership with Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC), one of the largest NHS hospitals in the UK. The energy supplier will be helping the facility and its operator, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, reach its target of achieving Net Zero by 2030 by installing a range of energy-saving technologies. These will include a zero- carbon geothermal heating and cooling system, energy-saving windows, and ‘state-of the-art’ building controls. E.ON said: “We’re delivering an end- to-end multi-solution project that will benefit the hospital and its patients for years to come, while improving local air quality by reducing harmful nitrogen oxide emissions.” The QMC project has been supported by funding from Phase 3 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, run by the Department for


Energy Security and Net Zero, and delivered by Salix Finance. The Carbon and Energy Fund (CEF) facilitated the programme. In addition to the QMC’s current


combined heat and power (CHP) plant, new heat pumps, boreholes, and a heat recovery system, will give the facility ‘a more environmentally friendly source of heating, cooling, and energy’. The heat pumps use electricity to


draw heat from the ground through the 64 boreholes drilled beneath the hospital site, but can also use the air outside to generate heat. Excess heat can be piped down into boreholes and stored or preserved for use at a later date. Any left-over heat can be recycled by the heat pumps. This lowers the demand for fossil fuels, and in turn reduces energy costs for the Trust.


and NHS England are agreed this must improve, and NHSE is working with Crown Commercial Services to explore options for ensuring that every ICB in the country has dedicated energy management expertise.” The Minister believes that this kind of coordination oversight is essential to reducing both costs and carbon emissions. On the topic of cost savings and efficiencies, Lord Markham said the NHS had recently announced that it will roll out a new ‘centralised approach to buying energy’, which would help slash the NHS energy bill by up to £100 m a year, ‘freeing up vital money for other objectives.’ He


‘There are currently over 200 different energy contracts in place in Trusts across England. That degree of variation is rightly something to rationalise and standardise’


Lord Markham


said: “This is because there are currently over 200 different energy contracts in place in Trusts across England. That degree of variation is rightly something to rationalise and standardise. I want to pay tribute to the work across NHS England and Crown Commercial Services that has secured this excellent outcome.” Such standardisation was something


Ministers want to see right across NHS operations, ‘whether it brings net benefits for cash, carbon, or both’. Lord Markham said: “That’s true on energy purchasing, and also true on our ground- breaking New Hospital Programme, and its own sustainability objectives. The biggest hospital building programme in a generation, it represents a huge commitment to strengthen the NHS through decarbonisation and efficiency.” Since 2020, the Government had committed to investing £3.7 bn by the 2024/25 financial year, and it expects the programme as a whole to be backed by over £20 bn for hospital infrastructure.


April 2024 Health Estate Journal 39


Courtesy of E.ON


Courtesy of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust


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