The NHS will have to play a leading role in the response to climate change if it is to provide the best quality healthcare, concludes a study launched today which will guide development of the health service. It calls for the NHS to take urgent action now to be fit for the future.
Fit for the Future recommends five key steps to creating a sustainable low-carbon healthcare system, ready for whatever the future may hold. The report details a set of scenarios which managers and clinicians can use to test strategy. It is the first time the NHS has studied the long-term measures required to maintain a quality health service for patients in the face of climate change.
NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson said: “Faced with the real environmental challenge of climate change, the NHS is determined to provide the best healthcare in a sustainable way which reduces our carbon footprint. We are sending Fit for the Future to every NHS organisation, to help us turn our commitment to delivering sustainable healthcare into real action.”
The report, co-produced by the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and sustainable development charity Forum for the Future, states: “A low-carbon NHS is a more efficient NHS and, if the service is to provide the best possible quality of healthcare in the future, it must build both its efforts to mitigate climate change and its resilience to that change. This requires investing in the future and getting it right.”
Jonathon Porritt, founder director of the Forum, said: “Some of the best brains in healthcare in Britain have been involved in developing this work. Reassuringly they conclude that being fit for the future means doing many of the things for which there has been a strong case but little political will or resource for many years – including shifting the emphasis to prevention, and helping people take more responsibility for their own health. But it also means healthcare professionals and organisations taking a leadership role in making healthy, low-carbon lifestyles possible for everyone – a challenge on which work has barely begun.”
The NHS generates more CO2 than any public sector organisation in Europe. Fit for the Future shows how it can transform itself and help pioneer a low-carbon economy. Health journal The Lancet describes climate change as the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.
Five steps to creating an NHS Fit for the Future
Fit for the Future sets out four scenarios for the healthcare system in England in 2030, presenting vivid descriptions of plausible but very different worlds. These were explored in interviews and workshops with NHS Trust chief executives, senior clinicians and public health practitioners, who identified five key steps for the service.
• The NHS, with its massive size and reach, can have a great influence on society and should take the lead on carbon reduction and climate resilience. “Taking climate change seriously comes close to being a duty of care for the service.”
• High carbon prices will squeeze health service budgets along with all public spending. The NHS should focus on promoting health rather than treating illness and raise the money it spends on this from 4% to 20% of its income.
• High-carbon lifestyles cause the “diseases of affluence” (including heart disease, cancer and depression), which have almost overwhelmed the health service. The NHS should take the lead in promoting low-carbon living as both healthier and happier.
• People are likely to have to take much more responsibility for their health in the future. The NHS should help develop public “health literacy”.
• Information technology (from online consultations to remote diagnostics and robotic surgery) will play a much greater role in the future. The NHS should work to make patients and doctors aware of the benefits this offers.
Details of the scenarios and recommendations are contained in the full report. To download the storyboards illustrating the experience of a diabetic in each scenario, use these links:
Service Transformation
Efficiency First
Redefining Progress
Environmental War Economy
Contacts
NHS Sustainable Development Unit:
Karl Heidel, Communications Manager
karl.heidel@sdu.nhs.uk or +44 (0) 1223 597 792; mob: 07946 755758
Forum for the Future:
Alex Johnson, Media and Publications Officer
a.johnson@forumforthefuture.org or +44 (0) 20 7324 3624
David Mason, Head of Communications
d.mason@forumforthefuture.org or +44 (0) 20 7324 3631
Notes for editors
NHS SDU – The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) is part of the NHS. It is primarily focussed on helping the NHS become a leading sustainable and low carbon organisation. It achieves this by advising, creating and leading on policy. The national unit is funded by all 10 strategic health authorities in England and is based in Cambridge.
It was formed in April 2008 and published the Carbon Reduction Strategy for the NHS in England in January 2009.
One of its aims is for staff in the NHS to understand the important connection between health and climate change. The NHS is one of the biggest employers in the World and has a carbon footprint of 18 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which is the largest of any public sector organisation in Europe. Its footprint is greater than some medium sized countries. www.sdu.nhs.uk
Forum for the Future – the not-for-profit sustainable development organisation - works in partnership with more than 120 leading companies and public sector organisations, helping them devise more sustainable strategies and deliver these in the form of new products and services. www.forumforthefuture.org
Our futures team works with partners across the private and public sectors, delivering thought-provoking and innovative ideas using scenarios, visions and trend analysis and contributing to the development of ambitious sustainable development strategies. Recent projects include: Climate Futures, analysing the social, political, economic and psychological consequences of climate change; Retail Futures 2022, looking at the future contribution of the UK retail sector to sustainable development; and Low Carbon Living , a set of visions and product ideas for a better quality of life in a climate-changing world.
Forum for the Future registered charity number: 1040519
