- Date: 16 October 2024
- Category: Informative Articles, Waste Management
Changes are afoot for the NHS in a bid to make savings and create a more eco-friendly and sustainable health service, as the UK government announce today that a project entitled Design for Life Roadmap will start with the aim to reduce single-use items in the NHS clinical waste stream.
The new Labour government have made it a mission of their first term in parliament to ensure that single use MedTech items are a thing of the past by launching a new incentive scheme for manufacturers to develop more items that can be used in medical settings multiple times, reducing waste and purchasing costs in the process, diverting much needed funds back into the NHS.
NHS Clinical Waste Savings Could Help Hospitals Across the UK
When thinking about the National Health Service, many of us don’t think of clinical waste. But maybe we should, because the stats are stark. For example, the NHS creates some 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste in England alone. Much of this, but not all, is single use apparatus that, if produced in such a way, could be used thousands of times more, reducing the need for new equipment each procedure. And the news of this major clinical waste crackdown, available on the government’s website today, offers an eye-catching insight into the level of waste.
The article states that harmonic shears – which help to seal wounds using ultrasound waves – are binned after just one use and cost £500 per item. But it doesn’t stop there. Companies already buying these used items of waste, safely remanufacturing them at lower cost and using them for themselves or to sell onwards. It seems like it’s this type of technology reinvention that the NHS and UK government are looking to take inspiration from in their mission to tackle excess NHS clinical waste.
And while this may be a big project, there’s evidence from other NHS trusts that savings can be made when it comes to NHS waste. For example, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust saved a whopping £76,610 in purchasing remanufactured catheters and then an additional £22,923 in selling the eventually used items for collection. If these figures were extrapolated across the 1148 hospitals in the UK, the NHS could save a massive £87 million in purchasing costs, and bring in a further £26 million in selling on these items for further remanufacture. Imagine this cash being spent elsewhere in the NHS.
Developed with more than 80 stakeholders from the UK MedTech industry, the Design for Life programme forms part of the UK government’s ambition to turn the UK into a life sciences superpower.
Direct365’s View:
As the UK’s clinical waste experts, we can only see this as a good thing for the NHS and the UK as a whole. In making these potential savings, the NHS is brining clinical waste to the heart of their cost-saving initiative. The figures being spoke about in the news released today are huge, and should serve as inspiration for private practices and even small businesses across the country. Waste doesn’t need to be single use. In the government’s words alone, a circular waste economy could add £75 billion to Britain’s economy and create 500,000 jobs too. And NHS clinical waste is just the tip of the iceberg. Any company can make cost and eco savings with the right willpower and strategy. And this move by the NHS seems like a good one to us.
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