Green Impact for Health

We are working to reduce our environmental impact by participating in the green impact for health scheme. This is important because environmental problems like climate change and air pollution damage the health of our patients and affect our ability to work effectively. The NHS makes up 4 to 5% of the UK’s carbon footprint currently, but it’s taking action to reduce this.

Things we are doing at Somerford Grove Practice:

• Reviewing our inhaler prescribing to make sure we provide the best possible care for all patients with asthma or COPD while also choosing inhalers with low carbon footprints where possible
• Regular medication reviews to ensure all prescriptions are safe and necessary – this improves patient safety and reduces waste
• Doing our best to take a ‘prevention rather than cure’ attitude, by providing advice on healthy lifestyles and using our social prescribing and health and wellbeing services and our volunteer group to address problems that affect our patients’ health
• Working with our landlord to improve the efficiency of the heating system
• Using email and text messages to communicate where possible, and using paper only when necessary

Things you can do:

• Help to reduce waste by only ordering your medication when needed and checking your medication before you leave the pharmacy so that any incorrect prescriptions can be used for another patient, but if they have been outside the pharmacy they can’t be reused
• Take any used inhalers or unwanted medication back to the pharmacy so they can dispose of it safely – don’t put it in your normal bin or flush it down the toilet - Reduce your exposure to air pollution by avoiding busy roads especially at rush hour, only driving when necessary and turning your engine off when stationary

The good news is that we can look after our health and look after the planet at the same time, because there are lots of things that are good for both. These include reducing the amount of meat and dairy in our diets and increasing the amounts of fruit and vegetables, cycling or walking instead of travelling by car and taking care of our green spaces so that we can spend more time in nature, and connecting with others to build healthy communities. We all have different circumstances and not all of us are able to do all these things, but it’s important that we work together and do the things we can.

Somerford Grove Practice declares a climate emergency

Climate change is already damaging our health and wellbeing, through increased risks of illness and death from extreme weather, threats to our food, water and energy security and the resulting impacts on the cost of living. The climate emergency hits the most vulnerable hardest on both a local and global scale, making existing injustices worse.

• Read the Health Effects of Climate Change (HECC) report
• Read the UKHSA report showing 2,877 excess deaths caused by May and June heatwaves
• Learn more about food security
• Learn more about energy security
• Find out who will be hit the hardest by climate change?

As a practice committed to fighting health inequalities, racism and all other forms of discrimination, we recognise the importance of making the links between environmental damage and human suffering, and of tackling these problems together.

We therefore declare a climate emergency and pledge to take action in the following ways:

• Continue to reduce our environmental impact by using the Green Impact for Health scheme
• Share information about our impact on the wider world through our People and Planet initiative and newsletter
• Follow the principles of sustainable healthcare to provide the best possible standard of care for patients and planet at the same time
• Continue to build community and promote patient wellbeing via our Together Better Volunteering Team

Please let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions about how we can do more to reduce waste and protect the environment within healthcare.