Positively Green

World Breastfeeding Week runs each year from 1st to 7th August to celebrate, promote and engage individuals in the topic of breastfeeding. The theme this year focuses on environment and climate change and has the tagline: ‘create sustainable support systems’. Encouraging and supporting any breastfeeding (where this is the preference of the family) helps reduce environmental harm and aligns with living sustainably within the planet’s ecological limits.

The Infection Prevention and Management Team (IPMT) have made waves in the reduction of non-sterile gloves used at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and have reported a reduction of approximately 630,000 gloves being used between 2023/24 and 2024/25, and a reduction of approximately 16,461 kgCO2e. 

A recent study of air pollution levels in and around Derriford Hospital has contributed towards University Hospital Plymouth NHS Trust’s objective of an ‘excellent’ score in the Clean Air Hospital Framework, as set out in its Green Plan.

Tavistock Hospital are lucky enough to have a Green Team headed up by Davina. The members of the team are all passionate about reducing the hospital’s impact on the environment and have achieved so much through sheer passion!  The Green Team consistently assess their practices daily to look for savings both financially and environmentally. 

Sophie, one of Plymouth’s Medical Students, has put together an exciting project whereby medical students are given reusable scrub hats during their time at the hospital.

Four years ago, the Oesophago-gastric unit at University Hospitals Plymouth faced a familiar challenge: managing clinical correspondence efficiently without a fully integrated electronic records system.

They introduced a simple but effective solution — the Digital Intray — that has since been adopted by 16 service lines across the Trust.

As University Hospitals Plymouth moves towards becoming a digitally enabled organisation with the adoption of the Devon-wide Electronic Patient Record system, departments are thinking creatively about how they can ditch manual paper systems in favour of electronic ones. The Cancer Services Team within the Performance & Management Information Department are no exception...

The Sustainability team’s collaboration with Earth Alliance at Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG) has culminated in a thought provoking and creative sculpture which is made from clean hospital waste.

Every year, the Sustainability team collects transport data so we can report on how our staff, patient and visitors are travelling to the hospital. There are four surveys which work together to provide the Trust with a comprehensive understanding of how people are currently getting to the hospital and what initiatives would encourage them to make more sustainable choices The first three of these surveys demonstrate how staff are getting to work, and the results for 2024 are in!

Since the 1970s, the UK has lost an estimated 97% of its flower-rich meadows , the once thriving habitats that provided essential food sources for pollinators such as bees and butterflies. In response, initiatives like No Mow May, launched by PlantLife in 2019, have helped raise awareness of the benefits of letting nature take its course .