Healthcare providers must involve engineers in pursuit of Net Zero ambitions or risk missing targets – IMechE report

• The NHS is responsible for 4% of England’s carbon emissions
• NHS England has pledged to achieve Net Zero by 2045 with Scotland and Wales setting similar targets.
• Engineers are essential at every level of healthcare to achieve this ambition

If the NHS is to succeed in its drive to Net Zero, it will need to undertake major investment in sustainable healthcare technologies to lower emissions and reduce waste, which will have broader benefits including cutting costs and improving patient outcomes, according to a new report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

In the report “IMechE Transforming Healthcare Report.pdf”, the Institution argues that the NHS needs to work more closely with engineers to develop innovations that tackle the unique problems that healthcare faces.

The NHS accounts for 4% of England’s carbon emissions and in 2020 adopted a multi-year plan to achieve Net Zero. Goals included delivering more care at or closer to people’s homes, reducing waste of consumable products and making sure new hospitals and buildings are built to be Net Zero emissions.

Dr Helen Meese, Chair of the Institution’s Biomedical Engineering Division and lead author of the report, said:

“The transition to Net Zero requires a multi-stakeholder approach, and nowhere is this more evident than in healthcare. Engineers have a huge role to play here, not only in designing and implementing sustainable healthcare solutions but also in fostering collaboration across disciplines and industries to ensure a healthier and more sustainable future for all.”

Technologies profiled in the report include the use of drones to deliver medical supplies, fully reusable medical textiles, and rebreathing devices to eliminate the environmental impact of anaesthetic gases.

Climate change is one of the biggest global health threats, with a third of global heat-related deaths attributed to climate change

It is therefore paradoxical that the healthcare sector globally is one of the biggest emitters. This IMechE report highlights that actions to drive down emissions in healthcare are therefore vital to not only slowing and reversing the effects of climate change but for improving public health outcomes and reducing pressures on health systems around the world.

The Institution is also calling for the continued support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through funding initiative such as SBRI Healthcare. It recommends further support for companies post-funding to facilitate uptake across healthcare systems.

This should be complemented with improvements to the UK’s medical devices regulatory framework, where UK government should use current reforms to align UK rules closely with those of international partners and provide accelerated regulatory pathways for priority areas such as net zero. This can help prevent an innovation drain to competitor nations such as the US.

Read our new report here (reminder, it is under embargo until 0001 BST 17 April 2024)

IMechE Transforming Healthcare Report.pdf

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was established in 1847 and has some of the world’s greatest engineers in its history books. It is one of the fastest growing professional engineering institutions. Headquartered in London, we have operations around the world and over 120,000 members in more than 140 countries working at the heart of the most important and dynamic industries such as the automotive, rail, aerospace, medical, power and construction industries.