NHS Wales takes a major step forward

First meeting of the reconstituted top level SD Steering Group for the NHS in Wales

The Department of Health and Social Services has reconstituted its top level Steering Group for Sustainability Development in the NHS in Wales. The group is chaired by Bob Hudson, the Director of Strategy and had its first meeting on 17th March in Cardiff.

With existing membership from organisations such as the Welsh NHS Confederation, WLGA, Sustainable Development Commission Wales, Welsh Health Estates and Value Wales, the group will be extended to include service representatives.

Since the launch of the Healthy Sustainable Wales toolkit in March 2007, NHS bodies have been developing sustainable development action plans and policies. This work will now provide a platform for developing the 2008/09 SD work programme.

Priority areas emerging from the initial meeting included:

• Building sustainable development into the NHS planning process and performance indicators

• Carbon emissions versus energy – until recently, Welsh Health Estates have been focussing on environmental management policy. WHE’s sustainable development policy is now being re-written to reflect a changing focus, that is concentrating on carbon emissions of the whole estate and its activities as opposed to focussing on energy alone

• Sustainable procurement – Value Wales is working on a range of areas that will impact on the sustainability of the health service, including enabling rural and small businesses to win contracts and enter the supply chain, and running training courses to support organisations in developing a sustainable procurement assessment framework and sustainable risk assessments.

• Communication – ensuring better communication and engagement across all levels of the health sector in Wales to enable and support the public sector to lead by example.

These actions and further priority work will be taken forward at the next meeting in June. If you have any comments, please contact Hilary Neagle on h.neagle@sdc.wales.ac.uk