Positively Green

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.

Staff on the Lind Research Unit, based in Derriford Hospital, have been reviewing their ‘waste‘ to see what they can do to improve the segregation of waste, reduce the amount generated and redistribute where possible.

Staff at the Derriford Centre for Health & Wellbeing (DCHW) have been busy sprucing up the outside space in the garden/pond area putting in new tables and plant pots.

Environment Plymouth, who are an external organisation (of which the Trust is a member of) and provide a strategic voice for local environmental and sustainability concerns, asked the Trust to sign up to their Plastic Free Community Status about 3 years ago. UHP pledged to remove, eliminate or replace three items of plastics from everyday use.

Did you know that University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust has recently relaunched a car sharing platform called Liftshare? We have been talking to a group of staff in the Anaesthetics Department who currently already car share to work to find out the benefits.

UHP has made the search engine ‘Ecosia’ available to staff should they wish to use a ‘greener’ search engine instead of popular search engines such as Google. Ecosia use all their profits for climate action, with at least 80% financing tree-planting projects around the world. On average, Ecosia will plant a tree for every 45 web searches you make and if everyone at UHP did this, we'd be able to plant 1000s of trees every month for free. To date, Ecosia have planted 154,161,909 trees worldwide.