Our Green Plan - Bolton NHS FT

We are committed to understanding and managing the key environmental impacts of our energy use, travel, water, use of natural resources, waste, and carbon emissions.

As a large and busy acute hospital with ageing buildings and infrastructure, we consume a significant quantity of resources and have a large carbon footprint.

We want to make substantial improvements to the sustainability of our operations. We recognise the impact we have on the environment and our responsibility to integrate sustainability within our core business.

Our Green Plan provides an organisation-wide strategy that outlines the Trust’s plan of action for 2022-2025, in line with our vision and objectives.

This plan aims to deliver more sustainable healthcare; improving the quality of care while enhancing our resilience, sustainability and wellbeing in preparation for future pressures and challenges.

Since the publication of our Our Green Plan, we have already introduced a number of initiatives that are making a significant contribution to our goal of a greener future in Bolton.

Digital Letters and text reminders

Since its launch in January 2022, the digital letter service which, allows patients registered with a mobile number to receive their appointment letters via a text link, has helped to reduce the number of paper letters that we have needed to print and mail out to patients. So far over 75,000 letters have been accessed digitally; this has not only improved the experience of our patients but it goes a long way in helping improve our carbon footprint and reduce our need to print.

Laptops for Community Staff

There has been an initiative to ensure that our community staff who need to travel for work are equipped with a laptop or iPad to allow them to connect to our system remotely. This scheme has helped to reduce the need for back and forth travel, reduce the miles that our staff need to cover and, in turn, helped to reduce the carbon emissions used to perform these activities.

Cycle to work scheme

The scheme, allows staff to save up to 30% on new cycling equipment while helping to increase physical activity and reduce carbon emissions. To further help staff who choose to cycle to work, new cycle racks and storage areas have been installed across the Trust to provide a safe place for staff to store their bicycles.

Electricity

Hospitals use a lot of electricity in order to keep vital equipment and lighting running which can be a big contributor to our emissions and carbon footprint. To help combat the impact our electricity use has on our environment we’ve been working on a few, more sustainable, solutions including transferring to 100% renewable electricity and recycling our food waste to create electricity.

The little things

Whether it’s bringing a reusable water bottle to work every day or bringing a sandwich in a washable container rather than plastic wrap, the little things we do each day can add up to a bigger positive impact. One of these simple changes we’ve made at the Trust is switching to wooden cutlery in the canteen. Not only is wooden cutlery biodegradable, but it is compostable and reusable leading to less waste overall.

Click here to read more about how we will monitor and reduce our emissions.