Ealing

Over 50 members

Introduction

Ealing Greener Practice group grew from the North London group and both work closely alongside one another. Our aim is to work with the GP practices to share learning whilst raising awareness of the NHS’s net zero ambitions bringing positive behavioural change to our patients, our communities, and our environment, now and in the future.

In this journey, we wish to support GP practices to achieve The Ealing Standard Green Initiative (2022-23) and Investment Impact Fund targets, while encouraging the primary care team to contribute towards reducing our carbon footprint. Join us to share simple, bite-sized practical tips!

Leadership

Chair: Dr. Vasu Siva

Dr Vasu Siva is the North West London Primary Care Clinical Lead for the Green Agenda (Ealing Borough) and a GP Partner at Hillview Surgery, Perivale.

What we’re up to

Ealing Standard Green Initiative:

We will be focusing on inhaler changes, green travel, efficient appointment timings, recycling and medicine usage, whilst celebrating our achievements and learning from each other.

Example of green change in my practice

by Vasu Siva:

I have always been aware of climate change and its impact on our daily lives. It is only since the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt that I needed to do something about it. In July 2020, I introduced the ‘Hillview Going Greener’ initiative at my practice to raise awareness of the importance of carbon footprint reduction and implemented measures to help tackle climate change. We signed up to the RCGP’s Green Impact for Health Toolkit. Through regular staff discussions, we identified ways to reduce our carbon footprint. We introduced ‘Green champions’ to help facilitate dialogue and take practical ideas forward. This initiative certainly brought the whole practice together as ‘one Hillview team’, resulting in us achieving the Gold plus award in 2021.

My passion for the “green initiative” has led me to this role. I want to support practices to achieve similar awards! This would unquestionably increase staff morale, improve patient care and wellbeing, reduce GP workload and improve finances. Additionally, it will help reduce your practice’s carbon footprint contributing to our NHS’s net zero ambitions.

Our belief is: ‘If it’s good for the planet, it’s good for you too!’

Useful resources:

Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service
NWL Green plan

Achievements & Celebrations

Hillview Surgery is proud to have enrolled the Green Impact for Health Toolkit in July 2020. The invaluable practical tips and resources in the toolkit helped us to achieve not only the Gold plus certificate in July 2021 but also the RCGP Inaugural PROactive Practice Award!

Thank you to everyone who contributed in developing and maintaining this awesome Toolkit.

Greenford Avenue Family Health Practice

‘Recycling at our GP Practice!

Staff at Greenford Avenue Family Health Practice go the extra mile to recycle waste. Our team takes home daily empty milk bottles, chocolate boxes, incoming post envelopes, and even plastic bags in which our medical records are received! As we are not provided with any recycling bins by the Council, we have taken it upon ourselves to recycle as much as we can on top of all the other providers, we use, including Anenta (clinical waste disposal), Phs (Sani & Nappy disposal), Shred-it (Confidential waste). We re-use some envelopes for the incoming posts within the practice e.g., to keep receipts, money, internal post between staff etc. All A4 papers which have one blank side and no patient data are cut into A5 sizes, and stapled into small booklets avoiding the need to buy jotting pads for the staff! List goes on and so will we continue recycling….’

Mill Hill Surgery

Incorporating physical activity into our daily lives is a huge way of improving our own health directly, whilst also improving the health of those around us by reducing air pollution. Join me in congratulating the team at Mill Hill Surgery, Acton who have taken the initiative to lead by example!

Thank you Rosanna Hailstone, for sharing your team’s achievements!

‘Currently, all the partners at Mill Hill Surgery travel to work by bike or foot. It has been actively encouraged to travel green and now the trainees are using public transport as well where possible. We have focused on transport as part of our green agenda as we believe in the additional positive health benefits. Getting to Acton can be tricky due to heavy traffic and by cycling, we can guarantee we will get to work on time! Although it can get chilly it is surprising how infrequently we actually get rained on and all in all, we find the cycle home can be quite therapeutic after a heavy day at work!’

Gordon House Surgery

Crown Street Surgery

The story of our success – Ealing practices ‘Going Greener’ 2022/23

Congratulations to everyone involved in making a difference to your carbon emissions and making your practices ‘green’.

A total of 64 GP practices across Ealing Borough achieved the ES Green Initiative in 2022/23. This is indeed a great success. The areas covered are summarised in the table below. I hope this journey continues to increase staff morale, reduce GP workload and improve finances, whilst making positive behavioural changes in our patient population.

The Ealing Borough ICB team adopted a leadership position to tackle climate change and introduced the Green Initiative as part of the ES standard for the first time in April 2022. We aimed to embrace the climate movement and encourage as many practices as possible to start making changes, in reducing their environmental impact and improving the health and well-being of generations, while incorporating sustainability into their daily work without imposing a considerable amount of additional work. Undoubtedly, this will support the NHS’ net zero ambitions.

While we celebrate our success, I hope we continue to work together and in collaboration with other stakeholders including our patients in achieving our goals of offering effective and efficient patient care, whilst protecting our environment.

Please share your amazing work with us so we can all learn from each other. ‘Shout out’ the names of those who have gone the extra mile to make a difference.