Positively Green

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.

Recycle Week is an annual event designed to celebrate and promote the benefits of recycling. It creates opportunities for us all to implement positive change that will help protect our planet.

The Trust has implemented a travel plan tool called PTP (Personal Travel Plan) to help patients, visitors and staff plan their journeys to Derriford Hospital, and encourage people to use more sustainable travel options.

As part of considerate constructors and also giving back to the environment, Obedair, who were appointed by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust to refurbish Brittany House (previously the NU Building), had arranged with Happy Days Nursery at Derriford to build a bug hotel and plants on the Brittany House site.