South West Clinical Senate Recommendations. Climate Change. (November 2021)

Revisiting and Reenergising our focus on Climate Change
January 2020 saw the launch of the ‘Greener NHS’ programme and the setting up of an NHS Net Zero Expert Panel chaired by Dr. Nick Watts, the first NHS Chief Sustainability Officer, tasked to create a national road map to get the NHS to ‘net zero’. In October 2020, the ‘Delivering a Net Zero NHS’ Report was published and the NHS became the world’s first health system to commit to becoming ‘carbon net zero’.
Autumn 2021, saw the one-year milestone of this report and the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). Shortly after COP26, the South West Clinical Senate Council met to discuss climate change and reflect on progress since the earlier report on Climate Change which was published in 2018 and put forward recommendations on how to reenergise the issue in the region.
The Senate Council and speakers from NHSEI Regional and National teams met to showcase achievements and what is being done across healthcare systems to decarbonise the NHS. Also in attendance was representatives from the Citizens Assembly who shared the patient and public perspective and reminded the group of the importance of engaging patients and communities. The output and recommendations from this session is contained within this report.

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