Wednesday 17 May | 11:00-12:15

Format: Presentation
Stream: Population and public health
Content filters: n/a

Chair: Dominique Allwood, UCLPartners and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

PART ONE - Striving for zero emissions…can quality improvement help?

This session will share Scotland’s learning about how Quality Improvers can play a central role in achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across their teams, organisations, systems and nations.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand how quality improvement can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a healthcare setting
• Recognise the relationship between reducing emissions and supporting a realistic medicine approach to the delivery of high quality patient care
• Understand how reducing carbon emissions can, at the same time, reduce cost

Jason Leitch, Scottish Government, Scotland

Stuart Duncan, Scottish Government, Scotland

PART TWO - Prescribing to save the planet: it’s everyone’s business

Climate change and environmental sustainability is high on everyone’s agenda. The public expect health services to use resources sustainably: most health professionals want to achieve this but don’t know how. 

Medicines account for 25% of the UK health service’s carbon emissions, which makes sustainable prescribing a high priority.

This session will start with the evidence on environmental harm that medicines cause. It will then describe how health professional leadership bodies in Scotland came together, taking a co-production approach, to create a national movement on sustainable prescribing. Finally, delegates will be invited to explore creating an international movement on sustainable prescribing. 

After this session, participants will be able to: 

• Understand the environmental harms caused by medicines. 
• Describe the value of co-production in creating a national movement. 
• Describe the key actions the world needs to take to achieve sustainable prescribing of medicines

Clare Morrison, Healthcare Improvement, Scotland

Laura Wilson, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Scotland