Exciting news from our Green Team Competition programme!

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare has been running Green Team Competitions since 2019. Last year, participating organisations saved an average of 56 Tonnes of CO2e and £59,000 per year, while empowering staff to implement positive changes through engagement in our Green Team mentoring programme.

Running a Green Team Competition offers both a bigger picture understanding and guides practical changes in sustainable healthcare – transforming knowledge into action. It empowers NHS and healthcare organisations to bring sustainability and healthcare together, improve clinical outcomes, reduce organisational costs and become thought leaders in their journey toward net zero.

How running a Green Team Competition can help you make the NHS greener?

Greening the NHS: using the Green Team Competition to effect change

Read Angela Hayes’s point of view on using the Green Team Competition to effect change and help greening the NHS. Her most recent paper for Nursing Times examines the advantages of hosting a Green Team Competition with CSH to drive long-term changes in workplace practices.

Solving NHS demand challenges with a sustainability lens: SusQI examples from the Green Team Competition

Our Green Team Programme Lead Rachel McLean wrote a blog post for The Q Community led by the Health Foundation. Rachel reflects on two sustainability in quality improvement (SusQI) projects from recent Green Team Competitions showing huge potential for improving patient care while saving staff time, saving money and reducing environmental impact.

CSH Green Team Competition, a major springboard to award nominations and national recognition for sustainability efforts

We are proud to share with you that the Green Team Competition programme has received various accolades throughout the years, the most recent of which are listed below:

Two participating teams have been named finalists for the 2023 HSJ Towards Net Zero Award, including the Northampton Greener Personal Protective Equipment project led by Holly Slyne. The entire impact report from the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) team may be seen here.
The BMJ Net Zero Clinical Care Conference 2023 has accepted several Green Team initiatives for poster presentations. Lynn Riddell, project lead, will present her project on reducing low value appointments during the event. Her Green Team Competition case study was originally presented during our 2023 SusQI Showcase webinar, and the recording is available here.
The CSH SusQI team will also be presenting at the Net Zero Conference 2023.
Two Green Team e-posters were displayed at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, Copenhagen 2023.
Sarah Williams and Laura-Marie Baldwin led Gloucester Hospitals FT to investigate the impact of introducing sustainable enteral feeding practices. Their project is nominated for the CAHPO (chief allied health profession officer) awards. They will also present their poster at the ESPEN (European Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition) congress on 13th September too.
Their presentation at our SusQI Showcase 2023 event will provide you with significant insights into their creative strategy to decrease the carbon footprint through the use of reusable equipment while maintaining patient care. The Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Green Team Competition full report can be found on our website.
Alex Langstaff and Holly Slyne, two Green Team project leads, are also finalists in the Royal College of Nursing Awards 2023 in the Greener Nursing Category. Our SusQI Showcase 2023 event included Alex Langstaff’s project Treating Mucositis with Photobiomodulation Therapy. Angela Hayes, who has led clinical sustainability programmes at her trust and supported various green teams, delivered the presentation. The video is available here.

Green Team Competitions resources, agenda and latest update

We will be completing three competitions in the coming two months with South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and North East London Health and Care Partnership. As always, we will live-tweet the presentations and outcomes of the competitions. Impact Reports will be shared via the Green Team map on the website. Individual case studies will be shared via our Resource Library!
We will be commencing three competitions in September with three NHS Trusts in England.
We just redesigned our website page to provide you with the best user experience and to help you understand how the Green Team Competition programme may benefit both staff and patients. You can now use the tabs and resources to learn how to host a competition, read our success stories, and download the Green Team brochure.

Lost and don’t know where to start? Get some inspiration form previous competitions

Case examples from previous competitions can inspire you to begin your own journey into sustainable healthcare. We will be adding several new case studies in the coming months to our Resource Library.

Thank you to all our participating teams! It’s people like you who are really driving clinical action in sustainability – thank you! We can’t wait to see how your efforts enhance healthcare results for patients, boost employee morale and job satisfaction, and assist your Trust in saving money and lowering its carbon footprint. – CSH SusQI Team

Why don’t you run you own Green Team Competition?

Your organisation has a unique opportunity – and responsibility – to take decisive climate action. By investing in your staff to adopt sustainable healthcare practices, you can reduce your carbon footprint, save money, improve patient care, and become role models for other sectors. Your staff are on the frontline of healthcare every day – enable them to join the frontline of climate action too. The Green Team competition can support you to do so. Visit our webpage to learn more and take the first step toward a greener, more sustainable NHS.

Have any questions?

Please see our FAQ page for further information. Or contact Rachel McLean, Green Team Programme Lead to schedule a 30 minute Teams call rachel.mclean@sustainablehealthcare.org.uk