Positively Green

At University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, we are acutely aware of the social responsibility that goes hand in hand with an anchor institution status. Wherever we can, we want to give back to the local community that makes up UHP’s patient, staff, and visitor groups.

As we approach this years Global Recycling Day on 18th March, it's important to highlight just how imperative recycling is across the globe. Of the earth’s natural resources, we tend to think of six as the most important: water; air; oil; natural gas; coal; minerals.

These resources represent our entire existence on the planet and today, we rely on their resources for food, hydration, power, clothing, technology, transportation – the list goes on and on.  

Healthcare provision is constantly transforming and improving as the use of technology continues to modernise and opens up new opportunities for more efficient systems, faster drug or vaccine development, earlier predictions of diseases as well as making accessing services or information easier. And it is the latter that might seem small, but can be hugely beneficial with electronic versions of care leaflets being available at the touch of a button.

It gives the Sustainability Team great pleasure to announce the first birthday of our staff sustainable behaviour programme, Choosing Greener, which has focussed on embedding sustainable behaviours, helping us to do our bit for the environment.

UHP's vision is to provide outstanding integrated care with a key strategic objective of being able to provide services in a sustainable way. Helping us work towards this objective is one of our top 3 improvement challenges, which is to reduce outpatient routine follow-up appointments physically seen in a hospital setting by 35% by 2024.

At UHP, our laboratory analyse samples from patients in the Hospital as well as other NHS settings, such as GP services, from across Devon and Cornwall. The ‘traditional’ method for transportation involves packing samples in several single use plastic bags which are collected by our courier service to be taken to Derriford.

Derriford hospital is well known as a large teaching hospital compassionately providing a range of excellent care services accessible by up to 2,000,000 people in the South West peninsula, but it is also a invaluable home of accessible, safe green spaces. Within the 23 hectares of green-blue spaces onsite, you can find the Bircham Valley nature reserve, the Orchard and a wildlife pond , including many courtyard gardens.

With the Trust leading the way towards its aim of being carbon neutral by 2030 and choosing to embed more sustainable practises, we’re also encouraging onsite 3rd party vendors to choose and offer sustainable alternatives, where possible.

Mohs Micrographic Surgery (MMS) is a surgical operation in which skin cancers (namely basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas) are removed. These lesions are removed and immediately viewed under the microscope to ensure all skin margins are clear of cancer cells (image 1). For this procedure, we usually utilise surgical personal protective equipment (PPE) which includes 2 sterile glove pairs and 2 surgical gowns.

The journey for medicines from the pharmacy to make it to the right patient on the right ward is necessarily a quick & accurate process that now produces less single use plastic waste thanks to the Pharmacy team switching to paper delivery bags.