A green pilot project at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has proven to cut carbon footprint, reduce costs and save time for patients.
Back in February UHSussex was granted funding to pioneer the creation of a green digital pathway for orthopaedic surgery patients at The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
The grant came from the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), through SBRI Healthcare, as part of its series of competitions helping the NHS address some of its biggest healthcare challenges, in this case seeking to reduce the carbon footprint of the surgery pathway within the NHS, a major contributor to greenhouse gases in hospitals.
As part of UHSussex’s ‘Patient First Planet First’ green agenda, the goal for the Trust was to reduce the need for face-to-face visits from referrals to discharge, to take the entire patient journey from paper to digital, and look at the carbon footprint savings at the end of the six-month project – from start to virtual ward.
All targets have been met:
- Face-to-face appointments, pre-assessment, were reduced by 80%
- More than 80% patients were satisfied with their experience
- Target of 1,060 patients on the pilot exceeded by nearly 400
- 7.6tonnes CO2 saved – (If repeated across all surgical specialties that would work out at 325t of CO2)
Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon Sandeep Chauhan, who led on the project, said: “Our approach centred on reducing the need for face to face visits from the very first referral all the way through to discharge.
“We wanted to personalise and decarbonise the patient journey. Patients would send in photos, they would watch videos instead of receiving written information – over 55% of patients received info via their mobile. And 80% were satisfied with their experience.
“The results have been very good. An independent organisation called Unity Insights provided evaluation of the carbon and financial savings.
“I have worked at the Trust since 2002 and I’ve always had an interest in digital and sustainable medicine.
“I’ve seen first-hand the work of my colleague, Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon James Gibbs, who together with Physiotherapist Lucy Cassidy, launched the first virtual fracture clinic in 2013 with great success. The model has since been rolled out at lots of hospitals around the country and I felt compelled to follow his lead and explore digitising the entire patient pathway.
“I’m on an NHS National Innovation Fellowship and through this I heard about the competition and my colleagues and I decided to apply to run a 6-month pilot in Orthopaedic surgery at UHSussex.”
Associate Commercial Director for UHSussex, Andrea Burroughs, added: “The results have been impressive. A saving of 7.6.tCO2 is good and if that were to be across all surgical specialties that would be 325t – about 1% of all our carbon footprint.”
“We have been invited to apply for a phase 2 study covering all surgical services, and we will hear later on in the year whether we have been successful.”