Carbon Literacy Training: an overview of our work with NHS North East London Integrated Care System

Tuesday, 5 December, 2023

In December 2022, NHS North East London (NEL) put out a Request for Quotation for Carbon Literacy Training for North East London Integrated Care System. CSH was invited to submit a bid to include various carbon literacy, quality improvement and leadership opportunities and to create spaces for professionals from across the system to learn together.

The package of support CSH tendered and which was accepted included:

  • multiple Board Level Trainings
  • a Green Team competition
  • access to the full range of CSH online courses
  • places on the SusQI Academy.

Additional time was needed for communication, marketing and project management due to the challenges of working across a while ICB regarding promotion, recruitment and planning.

Promotion and recruitment began in the Spring with the programme starting in June 2023. During the process, we worked closely with Rebecca Waters, the NEL Health Improvement and Inclusion Manager (Net Zero and Anchor Institutions), who was integral in ensuring the training opportunities reached the right people.

Net Zero Leadership Training for Boards: grasping the unique characteristics of leadership for sustainability to inspire, lead, and measure change.

Sustainable transformation across an organisation requires leadership and engagement from board-level staff. Our Net Zero Leadership Training for Boards is an interactive training workshop designed for groups of board-level leads and tailored to local requirements. It focuses on the expectations for their role in the NHS Net Zero Plan, the unique characteristics of leadership for sustainability, and what they can do to inspire, lead and measure change.

For NEL, we ran 3 workshops for a total of 45 delegates. Here is what they have to say: 

‘’Hayley's presentation was absolutely superb and possibly the best talk through of the co-benefits to health and the system that I've heard (and I've heard a few!).’’ Dr Emma Radcliffe

‘’The information was engaging and manageable amount.’’ Carolyn Botfield

Green Team Competition: an empowering, team-building project to bring sustainability and healthcare together.

As part of their journey with us, North East London Health and Care Partnership commenced a Green Team Competition in May of this year.  

Through the Green Team Competition, 5 teams were selected from across 4 organisations within the partnership from both primary and secondary care to engage in our sustainability in quality improvement (SusQI) programme to transform knowledge into action. Each team received mentoring from CSH facilitators to drive healthcare transformation by developing, implementing and measuring the impact of projects through the lens of the sustainable value equation.

Rebecca Waters said re. Green Teams: “We were so impressed with all of the projects. You are all pioneers and should be very proud of what you achieved in such a short time.“

The winning team – Physiotherapy, said  “A great experience- our first sustainability project!”. Their project highlighted the invaluable insight and pivotal role allied health professionals have in bringing sustainability into the heart of healthcare.

The competition has brought anticipated annual savings of £231,518 and 27,872 kgCO2e. It is the carbon footprint equivalent of driving 82,315 miles in an average car or 101 return trips between North-East London and Edinburgh. 

You can find their full Impact Report and read each project summary here.

CSH online courses: getting all the knowledge and tools to implement sustainability projects in your workplace.

CSH courses are interactive, applied professional training opportunities to incorporate environmental sustainability into health programmes, facilities management, clinical care pathways and quality improvement. Using real-life case studies and small-group exercises, participants develop methods, metrics, tools, confidence and strategy development skills. 

So far, across all of the sustainability training offered to NEL staff, 71% of opportunities have been filled. We will continue to deliver training courses for them through 2024 using the general format we are already applying: a mix of core concepts and case studies, followed by live online workshops with expert advice on applying theory to practice.

Our work with NEL ICS continues into 2024 through the SusQI Academy.

10 leads working in a range of roles in the ICB, primary care, medicines optimisation and leads from North-East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) will be joining the CSH SusQI Academy, a year-long programme supporting teams to integrate sustainability into their quality improvement initiatives and organisational approach. 

“I’m feeling optimistic and excited about what we can do. Not only for the system but for our local residents.” -Jo Moss, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer

The offer will continue with courses and the SusQI Academy in 2024. NEL already held a celebration event on 9th November to bring people from across the ICB together to reflect, celebrate and brainstorm how to use their learning for the next steps for Net Zero. Rachel McLean and Hazel Walsh from CSH attended and heard about the Centre for Sustainable Healtchare contribution and engagement and about the other providers' role in thise carbon literacy training offer.

That photo is of our Green Team Service Lead, Rachel McLean with the NEL ICS Green Team Competition highly commended team

That photo is of our Green Team Service Lead, Rachel McLean with the NEL ICS Green Team Competition highly commended team. 

“It was a really great programme to be part of!” - Catherine Gaynor, leader of the highly commended team in the NEL ICS Green Team competition

It has been both a challenge and an opportunity to work at an ICB level. We’d like to thank Rebecca Waters, who trusted CSH to deliver meaningful training for NEL and brought the perfect mix of patience and dynamism. We could not have done this without our team - Natalie Oman in particular, whose admin diligence has been a huge part of the project's success.

Putting sustainability at the heart of the NHS: how can you get involved? 

As an individual: 

As a trust/board:  

  • Adopt and influence sustainability practices within your trust/board by having a clear Green Plan startegy that is easily accessible to all staff and patients. Our in-house experts can help estimate and analyse your carbon footprint at organisation, department or clinical pathway level as well as looking at individual products.
  • Increase the sustainability knowledge of your healthcare team. CSH provides board level net zero leadership training and offers block booking discounts for organisations who wish for their staff to attend our short courses in sustainability, health and healthcare
  • Run a Green Team Competition to transform healthcare by reducing carbon emissions, enhancing patient care and staff satisfaction, and saving money
  • If you are interested in running a full Carbon Literacy Training, please send an email to info@sustainablehealthcare.org.uk