Green Plan 2022-25

We have a climate crisis and the NHS and regional partners have a significant role in reducing its impact and to build a strong coalition to reach net zero carbon.

Achieving net zero will require a growing and ongoing focus across all of our planning and healthcare delivery activities to ensure that our decisions make a positive contribution.

These decisions will not be straightforward and some of them will cost more in the short term which will be difficult at a time that the NHS is being challenged to become more efficient and cost-effective.

However, we have to act and act now at an NHS, organisational and personal level to reduce our contribution to the emissions that are changing our climate and increasing the risk of harm to our citizens. Some of these actions will be easier to achieve than others, such as choosing how, when, and even if we need to travel, while others will be more complex, like planning which services need to be delivered in hospitals, which can be achieved digitally, and which need to be delivered closer to where people live, in more local settings.

Our ICB Green Plan sets out clear priority areas for action. Our role as the NHS is to provide care and services to the population, and as an ICB to coordinate and lead the development of these services as they modernise. In doing so we recognise the inherent challenges we have across Lancashire and South Cumbria with an ageing estate sometimes in poor condition, the distances staff and patients currently have to travel to provide or receive services, and the challenges we have with areas of rurality and fragmented transport service. Resolution of much of this will require a joined-up approach with partners and regional and national colleagues.