SPONSORED BY HEALTH SECTOR NEWS
NHSaimsto be world’sfirst‘net zero’ national health system
The NHS last month adopted ‘a multi-year plan’ to become ‘the world’s first carbon net zero national health system’. NHS England said the commitment came ‘amid growing evidence of the health impacts of climate change and air pollution’, adding that among its aims would be ‘to save
thousands of lives and hospitalisations across the country’. It also cited the changing climate as ‘leading to more frequent heatwaves and extreme weather events such as flooding, including the potential spread of infectious diseases to the UK’. The organisation added: “Almost 900 people were killed by last summer’s heatwaves, while nearly 18 million patients go to a GP practice in an area that exceeds the World Health Organization’s air pollution limit.”
NHS CEO, Sir Simon Stevens, said: “2020 has been dominated by COVID-19, the most pressing health emergency facing us, but undoubtedly climate change poses the most profound long-term threat
to the health of the nation. The NHS has already made significant progress decarbonising our care, but as Britain’s largest employer, responsible for around 4% of the nation’s carbon emissions, if this country is to succeed in its overarching climate goals, the NHS must be a major part of the solution.”
NHS England convened the NHS Net Zero Expert Panel in January following the launch of the Climate Assembly UK, to take and analyse evidence on how the health service can contribute to nationwide carbon reduction efforts. Led by Dr Nick Watts, executive director of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, the Panel comprised public health and climate experts, and patient and staff representatives. Its report, Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service, sets out how the health service has already cut its own carbon footprint by 62% compared with the international-standard 1990 baseline, and by 26% when indirect factors are included.
Can AI enhance hospitals’ resilience? ODIN will deploy technologies along
With the COVID-19 pandemic having put considerable additional demands on the efficient running of many hospitals globally, a team led by Dr Leandro Pecchia from the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick has been awarded €13 million for the ‘ODIN’ project, which will explore the use of robots and artificial intelligence to help ‘ease the pressures’ on hospitals. A statement from the University announcing the funding said EU hospitals had been ‘completely unprepared to fight the COVID-19 pandemic’, attributing this in part to a 75 per cent fall in the number of ICU beds per million EU habitants in the past 30 years, and a ‘non-negotiable need’ to invest further in regional healthcare services ‘in response to demographic challenges’.
Dr Pecchia (pictured) said: “We have identified 11 hospital critical challenges which ODIN will address, combining the use of robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial
Intelligence (AI), to empower workers, medical locations, logistics, and interaction with the territory.”
14 Health Estate Journal November 2020
three ‘lines of intervention’: n Empowering workers using AI, cybernetics, and bionics.
n Introducing autonomous and collaborative robots for enhancing hospital efficacy and safety.
n Introducing and enhancing medical locations and medical device management using IoT and video analytics.
Dr Pecchia added: “These areas of intervention will be piloted in six top hospitals, in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Utrecht, and Lodz.” The research will encompass areas ranging from clinical and logistics procedures, to disaster preparedness and hospital resiliency.” The team will work with Samsung, Philips, and Medtronics, as well as seven SMEs, to ‘achieve the project’s vision’ – that hospital management can be revolutionised by using data-driven management such as Industry 4.0 technologies, ‘in the same way that evidence-based medicine revolutionised medicine with data-driven procedures’.
Firecode training in a ‘virtual classroom’
Specialist fire safety consultancy, Healthfire says it offers ‘live’ online Firecode and HTM 05-01 fire safety training via an expert trainer and ‘virtual classroom’, with shared screens and whiteboards, breakout rooms, and secure online assessments, ‘enabling learners to receive the same input, experience, and benefit, of attending a traditional training course, without leaving their home or office’. Healthfire offers expert fire safety advice and support to healthcare architects / designers and operators in both the public and private sectors, fire risk assessment, fire safety audit, fire safety training, the production of fire safety policies and procedures, and fulfilment of Fire Safety Advisor (Authorised Person) and Authorising Engineer (Fire) roles. The business was founded by Colin Newman, a Chartered Fire Engineer with over 30 years’ fire safety experience, over 20 of them in healthcare. Previously the Principal Fire Consultant for ‘NHS Estates’, he is the author of several parts of the previous and current Firecode suite, including the current version of HTM 05-01. ‘An integral part of the NHS response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy’, he continues to support NHSI with technical fire safety input.
He said: “The opportunities for Firecode training have always been limited, with only a limited number of specialist training providers with sufficient knowledge, experience, and capacity to provide such training. Consequently, there are few centres providing such training courses, which means that attending them often requires travelling to a training venue and the need for overnight accommodation and time away from home. The coronavirus pandemic created even greater challenges to the provision of quality training. However, as part of the national lockdown, most of us began using technology platforms to hold meetings. It was this that led to the development of a training solution using an online platform to provide high quality, real-time training. Healthfire’s online training requires just a stable internet connection, quiet space in which to learn, and a suitable computer. Virtual classroom training can eliminate many of the
disadvantages of attending a traditional training venue, and overcome the challenges of the ever shifting restrictions being imposed in response to the ongoing pandemic.”
©NHS England
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