Sustainable Healthcare Education and Training

We provide training in sustainable healthcare and planetary health for health professionals in educational institutions, professional bodies and healthcare organisations. 

Courses in Sustainable Healthcare

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. 

Fellowship and Scholarship Programmes

CSH fellowship and scholarship programmes offer clinicians the opportunity to develop sustainable healthcare skills in the context of the NHS. The programmes provide bespoke training and project work with CSH and a range of partner organisations.  If you would like to know more, please see our guide to Setting up a CSH sustainability scholar or fellow programme.

Sustainability in Quality Improvement Education Project

Despite growing awareness and concern about the climate and ecological emergency, as well as Government and NHS commitments on carbon reduction, there remains a gap in knowledge and skills for sustainable healthcare among health professionals. Integrating sustainability into quality improvement (QI) offers a practical way to fill this gap: addressing environmental and ethical challenges in healthcare while providing a fresh motivation for staff to engage in QI and directing teams towards the highest value improvements.  CSH Education Fellows, Dr. Stuart D'Arch Smith and Dr. Rosie Spooner have been working closely with partner institutions to:

  1. Demonstrate the inclusion of sustainable healthcare principles within undergraduate and postgraduate QI education 
  2. Evaluate the impact of this inclusion on learning and on engagement with QI.
  3. Accelerate the adoption of successful approaches by UK universities, Foundation Schools and other providers of QI education. 

Learning is shared via the Sustainable Healthcare Education network and national workshops in March 2020 (at KCL) and September 2020 (at the AMEE conference), as well as through open access resources at SusQI.org and in our Teaching SusQI course for educators.  For more information, or if your institution would like to be considered for as a demonstration partner, please contact siobhan.parslow-williams@sustainablehealthcare.org.uk.

Supported by Health Education England, Kings College London and the Health Foundation, an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.

Education for Sustainable Healthcare Network

The Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) Network is an international group of clinicians, academics and students preparing health professionals to produce an environmentally sustainable health service. Guided by a national Steering Committee, chaired by UCL Professor Anthony Costello, it’s aims are: (1) To assist health professional educators to develop and deliver sustainable healthcare  education; (2) To support health professional schools to incorporate sustainable healthcare education into curricula; and (3) To influence requirements for the integration of sustainable healthcare into health professional education. The network has over 900 members from all health backgrounds who share resources for teaching and curriculum development on sustainable healthcare and planetary health. At the request of the GMC, the SHE Network conducted a national consultation in 2012-13 and pubilished consensus priority learning outcomes in The Lancet. These informed the GMC's Outcomes for Graduates 2018,  which require that “newly qualified doctors must be able to apply the principles, methods and knowledge of population health and the improvement of health and sustainable healthcare to medical practice” (see GMC Outcomes for graduates: Further reading).   Network members also coordinated "Education for Sustainable Healthcare: from Theory into Practice", a SEDA-funded research project to develop new teaching on sustainability in eight "beacon" undergraduate medical schools, published in Public Health (2017), and as case studies.

Electives and Student Selected Modules

We offer 4-8 week practical elective placements for medical, nursing or allied health professions students.  We can also deliver an SSM or SSC remotely.  For more information see our webpage Who We Are. 

E-Learning

We provide content and pedagogical design advice for online learning materials.  Resources developed to date include: 

  1. Introductory module “Building a Net Zero NHS” commissioned by Health Education England and hosted on their platform, e-Learning for Healthcare: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/environmentally-sustainable-healthcare/  
  2. Open access learning materials for Sustainability in Quality Improvement at https://susqi.org 
  3. ​Royal College of Psychiatrists online module on the social role of doctors (by RCPsych Sustainability Fellow Dr Daniel Maughan)
  4. E-learning session on sustainable dentistry for Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex, available to NHS dental professionals and students free of charge on the e-Learning for Healthcare national platform here. 
  5. Health effects of climate change open access online module