Nursing staff can be sustainable leaders for a greener future
How we all choose to live our lives can adversely affect the environment and our health. The NHS is responsible for producing 4-5% of all carbon emissions in the UK, and every nurse and midwife can make a difference by engaging in solutions including preventing illness and disease, promoting health and self-care, reducing waste and carbon emissions, and thereby becoming sustainable leaders
Nurses should consider their responsibilities in sustainable healthcare and take action to promote health and self-care, and reduce waste and carbon emissions
The health of the planet is linked with the health of the human population, according to the World Health Organization.
Daily news reports on how the ways we choose to live are affecting the planet and our health support this. Increasing heatwaves, forest devastation, pollution, floods, lack of access to food and water and a rise in infectious diseases are affecting the health and survival of all living things.
‘As the NHS is responsible for producing 4-5% of all carbon emissions in the UK, each nurse and midwife can make a difference’
In the UK, and many other parts of the world, these environmental changes continue to impact those people in greatest need, the disadvantaged and those living in lower social economic situations.
Nurses and midwives need to consider their role and become sustainable leaders
In our thought provoking article, Delivering sustainable healthcare: how nurses and midwives can lead the way, Angela Hayes and Lucy Brown invite nurses and midwives to consider their role and response to this reality, and to become ‘sustainable leaders’.
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As the NHS is responsible for producing 4-5% of all carbon emissions in the UK – a figure reflected in many other healthcare systems across the world – each nurse and midwife can make a difference by considering their clinical practice and engaging with the green plan of their organisation.
Delivering sustainable healthcare: how nurses and midwives can lead the way offers clear and practical examples of how nurses and midwives can engage in solutions, including preventing illness and disease, promoting health and self-care, reducing waste and carbon emissions.
The answer to the key question ‘How can care be improved while reducing harm to the environment and using finite resources more efficiently?’ is sensitively explored and thoughtfully answered, in this engaging and hope-filled article.
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