Thank you…for all the work and enthusiasm you brought to making our inaugural Green Ward Competition such a great success. It was clear that your programme had really engaged with the teams involved and delivered more than our initial expectations, which is testament to the programme you run. It was so well received and has generated a lot of interest and excitement to develop further staff engagement in the future. We are very keen to build on this success.
Rob Speight, Head of Estates and Sustainability, Barts Health
June 2019
I've been running the ‘Green Ward Competition’ at the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, currently for the second year. The competition is offered by The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) who run workshop sessions, coach teams through their projects and quantify savings. In the first year we made savings of almost £40k. This years’ competition is not yet complete but it looks promising in terms of payback.
CSH add a great deal of value due to their medical/clinical experience. The project is focused on changing clinical practice but the scope can be widened. I highly recommend contacting CSH. It is a great, way of testing the concept of sustainability focused invest-to-save projects and they have a very good lead running it, Dr Olivia Bush. She is very savvy and has the knowledge and medical experience to engage with clinical staff to make fundamental changes to their practice that I think I (as a non medical/clinical paper pusher type person) would struggle to do.
Luke Mitchell, Energy Manager, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust
May 2019
Green Ward was really worthwhile. The sense of pride of those who were commended was palpable. People felt valued.
Ollie Swan, Medical Engineering & Energy Manager, Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
August 2018
Teams
Our team took part in a Green Ward competition in Leeds. The competition was structured really well with great training in Sustainable Quality Imporvement - 'SusQI' thinking. We were gently encouraged to look upstream and reduce our use of things to make a bigger reduction in our carbon footprint. We came up with a number of things to explore. Rachel and Rosie from CSH supported us with a number of quick catch up sessions to keep us all moving on our different strands.
By the end of the 10 week project, we made changes that will cut our carbon emissions by about 15 tonnes per year along with a useful cost saving. The discussions we had with colleagues and our patients were invaluable though. It was really rewarding to see people talking about the need to reduce our carbon footprint at work and at home. We have a load of new strands to work on next.
The Green Ward competition is a great way of picking up new skills and learning how to make bigger reductions in your carbon footprint. SusQI projects are a great way of team building and putting a spring in the step of the people we work with and give treatment to.
Mark Wright, Consultant Nephrologist and Haemodialysis Lead at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
July 2022
I enjoyed being part of the Green Ward Competition. This project has made me more aware of how I can help to reduce waste and become more eco-friendly, not only at work but also in my personal life.
Christina Canavan, Senior Staff Nurse, ITU, Frimley Health
September 2021
The Green Ward Competition has made me think more broadly about…sustainability. It’s been a good challenge to…think outside of my own clinical box.
Senior Sister, Frimley Health
September 2020
It was so helpful to have a structured plan to follow and meant we were made aware of every aspect of the process that we had to consider. As sustainability lead for the department is has given me the knowledge and tools to use when considering other areas to change.
Helen Spencer-Jones, Staff Nurse, Theatres Recovery, University Hospitals Dorset.
September 2020
[The Green Ward Competition] helped me to look at my career. Having previously been a project co-ordinator at the Eden Project…I was keen to…use [that experience] to help with positive change in the health service from a sustainability perspective. The competition gave me the opportunity to start doing this and led me to feel more confident with applying for this secondment role [from pathology lab technician as a project and service change facilitator in the transformation team at RD&E]. The Green Team is great at empowering people!
Olly Mawson, Green Ward Competition Participant & Project & Service Change Facilitator in the Transformation Team, Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital
July 2019
The project has brought about real cultural and behavioural changes in the department. Now that we have participated in the Green Ward Competition many clinicians are approaching me with ideas for other sustainability projects. We have a long list!
Dr Cassie Worth, Emergency Medicine Consultant, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust.
November 2018
The competition gave us an opportunity to run a pilot project and gather data to assess impact. We were pleased to see that our changes improved the environmental impact of our service and as well as patient wellbeing and team working. Winning the competition was great as it showed not only that our quality improvement project was endorsed by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, our Sustainability Manager and the Trust Senior Management Team but also gave our project publicity across the Trust. This opened the door for us to present our data to our department; we have now gained senior support in our department and have implemented these changes in radiology at St James’. We are also spreading our quality improvement project to other radiology departments in Leeds. All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the Green Ward Competition!
Katy Mallender-Ward, Radiology Reporting Practitioner, St James’ Hospital, Leeds
September 2018
Finance
This was a great initiative which prompted staff from all parts of the Trust to rise to the challenge of doing things differently resulting in benefits to patient care, improved efficiency, reduction in waste and cost savings. The support provided by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare was essential in giving our ‘Green Teams’ the confidence to be creative, to overcome challenges and become catalysts for change. A very worthwhile and rewarding experience for all involved and we are now looking forward to the next steps in spreading the improvements to the wider organisation.
Chris Tidman, Chief Financial Officer, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust
November 2018
Senior Leadership
As judges we really enjoyed finding out about the projects , and could see how much the teams valued the inputs from Dr Bush. The write ups, presentations and overall methodology were all expertly done. We can’t wait to continue the process of integrating SusQI (sustainable quality improvement) at University Hospitals Dorset, and to spread the team's sustainable healthcare projects more widely.
Richard Renaut, Chief Operating Officer, University Hospitals Bournemouth
September 2020
I was humbled by the sheer enthusiasm of colleagues in all disciplines, making sustainable changes with genuine tangible benefits for the environment and patients. The submissions were innovative, useful and ‘doable’. Much of the work had been done in people’s own time, reflecting their passion for making a difference.
Assessing the excellent projects was a real education. I learned so much. I was completely unaware of the fact that hospital staff, like me, will have a much greater impact on the total environmental footprint by changing their daily practice to prevent waste rather than by recycling.
I have been working here for 30 years as a ‘bug doc’ and I came away feeling that infection control policies may lead, too often, to discarding unused products when it might not be necessary; this made me think about how I might take environmental aspects into account when making decisions in the future.
The whole experience was incredibly enlightening and rewarding.
Dr Marina Morgan, Consultant Microbiologist, the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital.
August 2019
The Green Ward Competition is an excellent programme for engaging clinical staff in improving the sustainable practices of their wards and teams. Support from a member of the senior management team is essential for ensuring good visibility for the programme and encouraging as many participants to join the competition as possible.
Yvette Oade, Chief Medical Officer, The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
