NHS Scotland is poised to make “major strides” across 2025 in its drive to reduce emissions through breakthrough innovation, a health service partner believes.
After pledging to become a net zero organisation by 2040, the NHS continues to make significant gains through a variety of initiatives including new technologies, new ways of working, and a deep focus on reducing emissions.
A formal partner of NHS Scotland, InnoScot Health says that innovative approaches for more environmentally sustainable care continue to be embedded at greater pace.
Innovation Manager Frances Ramsay said: “There have been some very positive developments across NHS Scotland in recent times which, looked at collectively, add up to a picture of the health service making major strides on the road to lower emissions – from new thinking in building and transport emissions to more reusables and greater upcycling at all levels.
“Its electric fleet is ever-expanding. As of April 2024, 45% of NHS Scotland's vehicles were electric, representing a significant increase from the figure of 19% in October 2022, and that will only rise.
“Emissions from the energy used to heat and power NHS buildings continue to fall steadily, as do medical gas emissions, including the replacement of anaesthetic gas Desflurane with a less harmful gas which is now saving emissions equivalent to powering 1,700 homes every year.
“In fact, NHS Scotland won the European Sustainable Healthcare Project of the Year award in 2023 after becoming the first national health service in the UK to stop using Desflurane.
“It also means greater cost efficiency with the National Green Theatre Programme supporting health boards to achieve not only annual reductions of around 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide generated from surgery but also financial savings of around £6 million. These better practices significantly add up as we increasingly look to 2040.”
InnoScot Health continues to champion and encourage greener workforce innovation, recently helping to develop a breakthrough with midwives working at St John’s Hospital in Livingston which aids skin-to-skin contact while allowing birthing partners to keep newborns warm by utilising upcycled staff fleeces as a covering material altered onto new scrubs.
Alongside NHS Lothian’s Research and Development team, InnoScot Health helped protect and register the design, meaning that Cozy Cuddle Scrubs (by Stacey)™ are now well-placed to become more widely available through manufacturing partners.
Frances continued: “With so many projects coming to fruition, there is much to be proud of and so much innovation potential in the drive towards a net zero NHS Scotland.
“We want to inspire and encourage that vital push as much as possible by lending our support to the 180,000-strong workforce – and who better to deliver net zero than the people who are closest to the issues and can see first-hand how emissions-producing processes are contributing to climate change?”
Pioneering staff at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital recently announced their role in co-designing friendly and reusable theatre caps made from sustainable plant-based material as part of a research project led by the University of Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt University.
The project primarily aims to reduce waste created by the 800,000 single-use theatre cap products disposed of annually by Scottish hospitals, demonstrating the power of innovation-driven collaboration for sustainable design, as well as the potential for further rollout across the country.
InnoScot Health’s own sustainability call aims to inspire health and social care professionals to come forward with their ideas for greener ways of working that can help the health service adapt and strengthen.
