The James Lind Alliance is a non-profit making initiative, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, which brings patients, carers and clinicians together in order to identify important unanswered research questions.
Operations are among the most resource-intensive of healthcare interventions; each operating theatre creates around two tonnes of waste per year, and a single operation can generate a ‘carbon footprint’ equivalent to driving more than 2,000 miles.
The NHS, which is responsible for four per cent of the UK’s national carbon footprint, has committed to achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2040. In order to do this, we need to make operations ‘greener’.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is supporting “Greener Operations”, a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership which aims to identify the most important research questions that need to be answered in order to help make operations (including surgery, anaesthesia, and healthcare provided around the time of an operation) more environmentally sustainable.
If you would like to find out more and contribute to this work, please visit the website and complete the survey, and share what you feel are the most important unanswered questions that should be addressed by future research.
Survey: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RZ2R3RL
Website: www.greener-operations.org