The government has launched what it has described as a ‘major crackdown’ on waste in the NHS.
The new strategy – the Design for Life Roadmap – sets out 30 actions to help the health service reduce the number of single-use medical devices and its reliance on product imports from overseas.
As part of the plan, the government has pledged to work with companies to encourage the production of more sustainable products and to support training for NHS staff on how to use them.
The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) said it welcomed the approach and highlighted how many general practice nurses were already leading on initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of the health service, including through the promotion of reusable inhalers.
According to the Department of Health and Social Care, disposable medical devices ‘substantially contribute to the 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste that the NHS produces every year in England alone’.
And it said its roadmap ‘paves the way to slashing this waste and maximising reuse, remanufacture and recycling in the NHS’.
It suggested its plans will lead to the creation of ‘thousands more UK jobs’, ‘help transform the country into a life sciences superpower’ and secure savings in the NHS.
The government said it will support companies to ‘safely remanufacture’ what were previously single-use items, and committed to changing procurement rules to ‘incentivise reusable products’.
A key part of the strategy highlights plans to create a training and skills framework that would set out ‘how the sector will design and deliver education geared towards promoting circularity in healthcare’.
‘Through national bodies such as DHSC and NHS services enabling expert bodies such as the royal colleges, efforts can be made to implement targeted training to drive a culture of circularity and sustainability within all professions,’ it said.
Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘The NHS is broken. It is the mission of this government to get it back on its feet, and we can’t afford a single penny going to waste.’
He added: ‘Every year, millions of expensive medical devices are chucked in the bin after being used just once.
‘We are going to work closely with our medical technology industry, to eliminate waste and support homegrown MedTech and equipment.’
The Design for Life programme was developed stakeholders across the health and care system, including the Royal College of Nursing, as well as those from within the UK MedTech industry and across research organisations.
QNI chief executive Dr Crystal Oldman said: ‘The QNI support this approach to reducing NHS waste, by targeting single use products and working with industry to redesign products which can be used multiple times.’
She pointed to an example of practice nurses ‘leading’ on initiatives to reduce the prescription of disposable inhalers for people with asthma and COPD, and increasing the prescription of reusable ones.
‘Not only is this good for the environment, it is cost saving for the NHS too,’ said Dr Oldman.
She stressed there were several examples where ‘nurses have led in reducing the carbon footprint in the NHS and social care, which also include supporting the circular economy’.
