A practical guide to decarbonising the bladder cancer care pathway

The NHS has taken a leading role in addressing global warming, with statutory duties to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Environmentally sustainable models of clinical care are one of several key priorities identified by the Greener NHS team in their roadmap for change. The GIRFT programme is ideally placed to design sustainable models of care because of its national reach and clinically-led approach to identifying and supporting best practices.

In this guide we apply the GIRFT approach to sustainable care pathway design. We have identified many areas where we can lower the NHS carbon footprint whilst promoting high quality care. Some recommendations involve guiding the continued uptake of established GIRFT principles. Others demonstrate improvements available when experienced clinicians and patients intentionally apply sustainable healthcare evidence to the care settings they intimately understand.

This guide has used a data-driven approach to understand where the most impactful and achievable changes can be made to reduce carbon emissions. We have adapted published carbon footprint estimates for healthcare activities: this approach has not been undertaken systematically and at scale before. We will build on this approach going forwards and continue to work with experts in healthcare and environmental sustainability.

Bladder cancer care is the first of many greener pathways GIRFT will develop. We hope that this approach will support trusts to both reduce the environmental impact of the NHS and provide better quality care for patients.

This is an early step in a clinical transformation journey that we must approach with careful consideration, but also urgency. The end goal is expert-led systematic decarbonisation across NHS clinical activity, so that our vital healthcare services minimise the secondary costs that they effect upon the planet.