Wales is fortunate to have world leading legislation to mandate healthcare providers in Wales to act against climate change.
Endorsed by the Minister for Health and Social Services, the Greener Primary Care Wales Framework and Award Scheme was launched by the Primary Care Division, Public Health Wales in June 2022 to help primary care on the journey to become more environmentally sustainable.
A short animation provides an overview of the Scheme.
In practice
The Scheme is designed to support general practices, community pharmacies, dental surgeries, and optometry practices to take positive environmental actions, thus contributing towards the reduction of NHS Wales’ carbon emissions and in doing so improving the health and well-being of the people of Wales.
The Scheme boasts:
- Between 85-109 teams registering each year and a potential reach of over 500 individuals. A new corporate offer has also been developed with Boots, Specsavers and Bupa dental (NHS and private).
- Nearly 3000 climate-friendly actions have been implemented across primary care (data since 2022 to May 2024).
The team at Public Health Wales were delighted to win the Healthier Wales award at the NHS Wales Sustainability Conference and Awards in June 2024 in recognition of the work.
Photo by: Sian Evans
About the Scheme
The Scheme consists of approximately 50 actions co-produced and updated annually with an Expert Group. Actions have financial, environmental, social, and clinical value and co-benefits.
Many actions involve consuming less and minimising waste thereby releasing financial and carbon savings as well as increasing social value.
The Scheme focuses on workforce engagement at health system level in Wales, whilst offering solutions that can be recognised by awards. The Scheme includes actions focussed on mitigation, decarbonisation and adaptation and supports the Just Transition to Net Zero Wales commitment.
Further information can be accessed via:
Sharing best practice
- Practices have approached implementation of the actions in the Framework in different ways. Collecting case studies from participating practices was helpful in providing practice advice about where to start, what could be achieved and sharing the learning. These were presented as a report (Yearbook) and a series of video case studies. All available on the Primary Care One webpage.
- The Greener Primary Care Wales 2022 Yearbook was developed to share examples of practice and celebrate the successes of practices involved in the Scheme during the first year. It contains a collection of practical case studies to inspire others to register and take action. It illustrates examples of involvement of the wider healthcare team, improvements in outside space and engagement with local communities, and the actions relating to encouraging healthy behaviours.
- A series of short video case studies, one for community pharmacy, dental, optometry and general practice provide further examples of best practice. They feature a walk through each different practice highlighting the actions implemented by the workforce showing the viewer what could also be achieved in their practice.
- Applying to be a part of the Bevan Commission Exemplar programme at the same time as developing the Scheme provided an opportunity to sharing of ideas and suggestions of how to spread and scale the intervention.
- A detailed case study Award Scheme to Engage Primary Care Workers published by the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate Change and Health, World Health Organisation (available online) enables international sharing of practice and identifies key learning.
Join in and take your first ‘green’ steps
The Greener Primary Care Wales Framework and Award Scheme is now open for Year 3.
Practices can register to take part here.
Primary care is starting to realise the role it has in combating the climate emergency and are starting to take action. We have highlighted the importance of including primary care in local decarbonisation plans and are starting to see this become a reality.
If practices want to know more about how they can be more environmentally sustainable there is information and resources available on the Greener Primary Care Wales webpages.
Further reading
- The NHS Wales Decarbonisation Strategic Delivery Plan, 2021
- Health Impact Assessment Public Health Wales. 2023.
- Sink or Swim. Optometry Today. Online. August 2022.
- Community pharmacy in Wales reaches net-zero emissions. The Pharmaceutical Journal. Online. December 2023.
