In June we held a festival of sustainability alongside our Sheffield NHS Trust partners, and we have been reflecting on the successes and learning we can take from the month.

The climate crisis is a health crisis which will impact everybody, especially the most vulnerable in our society where health inequalities are already affecting them.

We held the festival in partnership with Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The month was about people from the NHS combining expertise and learning knowledge and skills that we can all use to support our work to tackle the crisis and ensure we can continue to provide the best quality care possible to our communities and create a future where everyone counts.

Sarah Ellison, sustainability lead at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It was no mean feat but it was an absolute pleasure to join forces with our peers to educate, engage and motivate our staff to start a conversation about climate change and most importantly feel inspired to take action. 

“We are already seeking future opportunities to collaborate on projects and future communications in partnership with our fellow NHS providers and wider city partners.”

Image

The festival has led to a number of projects the NHS Trusts can begin to take forward. This includes how we can keep conversations about climate change, its links to healthcare and actions we can all start taking to meet the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change, progressing to turn talk into action.

We’re looking ahead to next year and how we can make the festival bigger, better and have even more of an impact to tackle the climate crisis as one unified health service.