WATER CONTROLS
Striking a balance between ‘green’ and ‘clean’ models
As global healthcare systems recover and learn from the effects of COVID-19, the focus is increasingly on creating more resilient estates for the future. Both infection control and climate change must be at the heart of this, argues Stuart Skinner, Marketing manager at water controls specialist, Rada, who here explores the close link between health outcomes and sustainability, and how ‘making the right decisions should mean clean and green estates’.
It’s understandable to push one crisis to the back of the mind when you’re in the midst of another. COVID-19 has presented one of the biggest challenges to global healthcare delivery in modern times. Rightly so, the focus has been on tackling the virus, learning from our response, and how best to rebuild from its devastating effects. However, with a light at the end of the tunnel, and vaccination programmes being rolled out, efforts are embracing the need for a green recovery. In the spring of 2020, 350 global healthcare organisations representing 40 million healthcare professionals issued a call to G20 leaders for a healthy recovery, as follows: ‘A truly healthy recovery will not allow pollution to continue to cloud the air we breathe and the water we drink. It will not permit unabated climate change and deforestation, potentially unleashing new health threats upon vulnerable populations.’
Threatening healthcare’s stability Extreme weather, declining resources, and the health impacts of air pollution, are just a few of the potential consequences of climate change that could threaten the stability of healthcare systems globally, while a compromised healthcare system inevitably means that the infection control standards needed to keep people safe will become compromised too. However, healthcare systems must themselves be addressing, and not contributing to, the problem. If the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. That’s what a joint report from Arup and Healthcare Without Harm concluded in September 2019. So, it’s clear that if efforts to recover from
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‘Digital’ is, by nature, more precise and accurate than human intervention.
COVID-19 are to be ‘green’, it must involve addressing the environmental impacts that healthcare systems can have.
A 10-point plan for a ‘net zero’ NHS At policy level, the commitment is there. The UK Government’s 10-point plan for achieving net-zero by 2050 includes a £1 billion funding commitment to building greener infrastructure, including hospitals. The frameworks for achieving a more sustainable, climate-resilient healthcare system are there too. NHS England kickstarted the strategic push last February, subsequently launching its plan for Delivering a Net Zero National Health Service in October 2020, the same month that the World Health Organization (WHO) published updated
‘Green and clean, safe and sustainable’ – creating models for safe healthcare delivery equipped to deal with the consequences of climate change, while not contributing to the problem themselves
recommendations with its Guidance for Climate Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities. While there may be nuances between the two, and room for flex with their suggested interventions, the objectives are consistent – ‘Green and clean, safe and sustainable’. It’s all about creating models for safe healthcare delivery that are equipped to deal with the consequences of climate change, while not contributing to the problem themselves; answering people’s immediate healthcare needs and contributing to a healthier society and planet in the long-term. Having the roadmaps to achieving future environmental targets across healthcare estates in place is one thing, but the work needed to realise these ambitions is still significant. Healthcare providers need to consider how every element of the estate and its care delivery can play a part. COVID-19 has sharpened the focus on infection control, and taught us that the provision of cleanliness and hygienic facilities is central to creating more resilient estates.
January 2021 Health Estate Journal 59
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