The climate crisis is a health crisis. So agreed the NHS Assembly at our pre COP26 meeting where Dr Nick Watts, who has been appointed to lead the NHS’s charge on net zero, laid out how the health problems caused by climate change are very real and very immediate.

And the facts around the NHS’s own impact on climate change are arresting. The health service emits energy at a staggering rate, with almost 5% of the country’s emissions health related, and around 40% of all public sector emissions. Carbon is everywhere in the NHS – the buildings we work in, the energy we use, the equipment we need, the treatments we prescribe.

It is beholden on the NHS and its’ users to fully engage with the carbon reduction agenda. However, there are good reasons to say that the NHS is facing into its responsibilities, with the NHS England board committing to ambitious and inspiring targets:

• For the emissions we control directly (the NHS Carbon Footprint), we will reach net zero by 2040, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2028 to 2032;
• For the emissions we can influence (our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus), we will reach net zero by 2045, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2036 to 2039.

These make the NHS the global leader in health system commitments to net zero, and there are some fantastic examples of concrete progress:

• In Oxford, using electric bikes has halved the delivery time of cancer treatments, while reducing local air pollution.
• In Bristol, and in other trusts, doctors are moving away from using desflurane, an anaesthetic gas with an environmental impact 20 times greater than other alternatives.
• In Milton Keynes, solar panels are set to generate more than 15% of the total electricity that the hospital uses and save the Trust over £225,000 a year in energy bills per year

The Assembly heard about many other great examples across the country, not least those led by NHS Assembly member Dame Jackie Daniel at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the first health organisation in the world to declare a climate emergency.   And these efforts are in addition to the environmental benefits of more care being delivered through remote consultations and monitoring, reducing patient and staff travel to physical healthcare locations.

But while we can feel proud and hopeful about the progress we’re making, the NHS Assembly’s consensus view was that we must stay impatient for change.

Our discussion encouraged all NHS leaders to go further and faster. Consistent governance mechanisms on net zero to be hardwired into every NHS structure. Using the power of social movements to cultivate passion amongst NHS people, challenging inevitability, and giving our NHS people the permission and encouragement to do things differently.

The Assembly also endorsed the very practical tips offered by Imperial College London, from making our voices heard by those in leadership positions, to personal behaviour choices  on diet, transport  and energy use.

The COP26 summit will be a convening moment where the world will be looking at the UK and what we are doing. While the NHS has many good things to report, as Nick Watts told us the key point is not to wait for the perfect intervention to emerge for you to take on net zero. It’s time to “go hard and go everywhere…pick one thing you’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and do.  Then pick the next action on the next day…and keep going”.

The NHS Assembly has reaffirmed its commitment to NHS net zero by 2040, and at this important time, calls on all NHS organisations, leaders and individuals to make their own long term commitment to bring net zero ambition and action into their everyday work.

Find out more by searching Greener NHS.

Professor Sir Chris Ham

Sir Chris Ham was chief executive of the Kings Fund think tank from 2010 to 2018 following 18 years as professor of health policy and management at the University of Birmingham, during which time he advised the World Health Organisation and World Bank among others. Between 2000 and 2004 he was director of the strategy unit in the Department of Health. Sir Chris has authored over 20 books and numerous articles on health policy and management. He received a knighthood for his services to health policy and management in 2018.

Chris is currently the independent Chair of the of the Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Care Partnership, non-executive director of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and visiting senior fellow at The King’s Fund.

Professor Dame Clare Gerada