Tavistock Hospital's Green Team reaches for the stars!
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 dedication in their spare moments! The Green Team consistently assess their practices to look for savings both financially and environmentally.
Their work has culminated in these recent achievements which we are proud to shout about here on the blog:
- They are printing less paper and directing patients to QR codes for information, particularly following surgery
- Single use plastic has been removed from theatre sets
- All theatre sets have been reviewed to make sure all equipment included is still being used
- Physical GP letters are no longer sent as these can be accessed directly by the GP electronically. So far this has resulted in a saving of approximately 780 pages of A4 paper and 390 envelopes and stamps.
- Single use cups are no longer used for the water dispenser. Instead they use washable cups and encourage patients to fill their own water bottles. In the last 18 months or so, this has saved approximately 2,340 cups.
- Patients are fed with locally made sandwiches stored in lunch boxes, thereby saving on single use sandwich wrappings.
- Intravenous anaesthetic is used as opposed to gas.
- Unused sterile wraps from theatre sets are repurposed
- Fifteen pots of English Lavender have been planted in the dining area to encourage bees and butterflies. During the winter they will lie dormant ready for the following year as opposed to summer annuals which need more water.
Moving forward, they are hoping to engage Estates colleagues in repairing their solar panels and they are actively working on switching all appropriate theatre set accoutrements to reusable.
We’re super proud of this team who have achieved so much since we visited them around a year ago! If Tavistock Hospital's work has inspired you, get in touch with us to find out how you can complete a similar project in your area plh-tr.sustainability@nhs.net.
