NHS and sustainability
What are the main strategies on sustainability in the NHS?
NHS England
Its vision is to deliver the world’s first net zero health service and respond to climate change, improving health now and for future generations.
NHS Digital
See their Sustainable Development Management Plan 2017-2022.
While their plan covers areas included in the Greener NHS Strategy, they also include digital sustainability.
This focuses on the 'use of digital technologies and tools to enable carbon savings across both NHS Digital’s own delivery and now to the wider health system.' It includes:
- adopting a 'cloud-first' approach where appropriate
- enabling smarter working through virtual collaboration tools
- embedding sustainability within digital services development design principles
Spread and adoption
Sustaining spread and adoption is about making sure innovations and changes stick in an organisation and are adopted by others. It’s about ‘holding the gains’ and ‘evolving as required.’
See NHS England's spread and adoption guide and its 7 interconnected principles: complexity; leadership; the individua;l benefit; adopter focus; networks; learning.
See also the Care Quality Commission's Enabling innovation and adoption in health and social care.
Page last reviewed: 14 March 2023