In this speech, the speaker introduces themselves as Kim Crowsdale from the Greener NHS team and discusses the importance of making sustainability a business-as-usual practice in the healthcare sector. They acknowledge their lack of definitive answers to the challenges but share their experiences working in sustainability for 15 years. The speaker identifies three key barriers:
1. **Consequences**: People prioritize actions that have immediate, tangible consequences, like job security or financial compensation, over long-term sustainability efforts.
2. **Urgency**: Urgent issues like patient care often take precedence over addressing the long-term effects of climate change, even though climate change is already impacting health.
3. **Measurement**: Measuring carbon emissions accurately and in a timely manner remains challenging, hindering progress in sustainability efforts.
The speaker suggests several solutions:
1. **Real Consequences**: Implement immediate, painful, or positive consequences for not taking sustainability seriously within healthcare organizations.
2. **Frame Climate Change as a Health Issue**: Highlight the health outcomes of climate change, such as air pollution, heatwaves, and flooding, to emphasize its urgency and impact on healthcare.
3. **Set Measurable Targets**: Establish targets that can be measured in real-time and directly tied to actions taken, such as reducing carbon emissions associated with specific medical practices.
The speaker emphasizes the need for serious discussions and responsibility at all levels of healthcare organizations, from boards to clinical teams, to address these issues effectively. They also stress the importance of making sustainability goals more tangible and relevant to healthcare professionals.
Sure, here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. The speaker, Kim Crowsdale, works in the Greener NHS team in NHS England Midlands.
2. Kim is discussing making sustainability business as usual (Bau).
3. She mentions the challenge of over-promising, similar to the publicity she received for speaking at an event.
4. Kim has 15 years of experience in sustainability.
5. She joined the sustainable development unit.
6. Kim and a colleague wrote the first climate change commitments in National NHS policy.
7. The NHS aims to meet Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040.
8. The speaker expresses frustration that climate change is not being taken seriously in the NHS.
9. Kim mentions the urgency of addressing climate change due to its impact on health.
10. She highlights the difficulty of accurately measuring carbon emissions.
11. The NHS lacks the ability to measure these things in a timely manner.
12. The speaker emphasizes the need for real consequences for not addressing climate change.
13. Kim suggests framing climate change as a health issue with immediate consequences.
14. She calls for setting measurable targets that are meaningful to people.
These facts provide an overview of the speaker's background, concerns, and recommendations regarding sustainability and climate change within the NHS.