Green Health Wales

Green Health Wales was launched on the 29th June2021 with a webinar discussing the global health emergency of climate change, and how creating sustainable healthcare could address the climate crisis. The event included conversations on how sustainable healthcare could be achieved by cross-departmental collaboration and empowerment of everyone in the health and social care sector. The key step in making a considerable change was identified as forming stronger links between all stakeholders, so ideas can be disseminated to maximise the impacts of projects across all regions.  

A large network of healthcare professionals shared their vision for the future of sustainable healthcare in Wales and their transformational projects which have already made such a significant impact. An example is Project Drawdown; a project led by WEAN (Welsh Environmental Anaesthesia Network) who have successfully reduced CO2 emissions of8 hospitals in Wales by a collective 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. This was achieved by reducing the gas emissions of anaesthesia drugs, avoiding the use of Desflurane.

We were particularly interested to hear about Greener Practice Wales, a network that focuses solely on environmentally sustainable health in primary care. One of their current projects involves a shift from prescribing Ventolin inhalers to prescribing Salamol inhalers, which have half the carbon footprint. e-Prescribing, remote consulting and enhancing digitalisation in practice are all on the agenda for future work and the parallels with Yma’s purpose and product offering through Practice Unbound are clear.

We look forward to contributing to these innovative network and being part of the movement towards a greener primary care in Wales.

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