Want to achieve a truly sustainable NHS? 5 ways Geography might be the answer

Source: (25) Want to achieve a truly sustainable NHS? 5 ways Geography might be the answer | LinkedIn

Health and Geography are intrinsically linked. Everything happens somewhere and geography considers the significance of place – be it at a national, regional or community level.

Where you live and work directly influences your health. How polluted the area is, the level of deprivation, how easily you can access health services, and the quality of the health services available, are just some of the ways that place affects health. This means that it is important to view NHS sustainability through a geographic lens – considering the differences between areas, and the local challenges these areas face.

When we talk about sustainability, naturally, a lot of us think about carbon emissions and climate change. Whilst these are key aspects of sustainability, it’s not just the environment we need to consider…

There are three pillars of sustainability: Social, Economic and Environmental. This means that when thinking about the sustainability of the NHS, it is also important to consider socio-economic factors such as: quality of life; inequalities; education levels; prevalence of disease; wellbeing of the population; management of resources and financial stability.

Okay… so health and location are linked, and sustainability is made up of social, economic and environmental factors, but how can geography harness a truly sustainable NHS?

Here’s 5 ways…

1.   Accurate geographic data is vital to reduce carbon emissions

In order to reduce emissions across your estate, you need to be confident in which places the emissions are being generated. Approximately 10% of total NHS carbon emissions come from travel (across patients, staff and visitors), so understanding how people are travelling to your services, and where they are travelling from, is vital to implement appropriate response and inform service transformation. Within the estate itself, it’s also important to understand which rooms and buildings are most responsible for emissions. Are all of your buildings energy efficient? Are there any unused rooms or buildings being unnecessarily heated in winter? Where would be the best place to position solar panels? Accurate location data can answer these questions and inform response.

2.   Place is key to be preventative

Shifting towards a preventative approach to healthcare, and therefore reducing clinical demand from avoidable health complications, is necessary to achieve a sustainable health system. Utilising geographic data can help you identify hotspots within a population where there may be higher prevalence of conditions like heart disease. You can also identify areas of higher risk to certain diseases due to lower vaccination uptake or reduced attendance of preventative screenings. Finally, you can analyse areas where factors such as smoking prevalence; obesity or alcohol consumption may be higher. Having access to this kind of data can help inform you of the challenges in the area and inform service reconfiguration to help prevent worsening health outcomes.

3.  Understanding the landscape of your estate is key to harness natural capital and preserve biodiversity

In order to preserve biodiversity, and meet environmental targets, you need to have a sound understanding of the natural capital across your NHS estate. Considering factors such as how much greenspace you have across the estate; where the greenspace is located and how the greenspace could be protected to enhance biodiversity, are all important factors to optimise natural capital and meet Biodiversity Net Gain regulations.

4.   Geography is needed to address health at the local level and reduce inequalities.

It is well understood that a “one size fits all” approach is inappropriate when it comes to health. Health outcomes vary considerably across the UK, so understanding local health needs and challenges is important in order to reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes. Does the area have significant clusters of childhood asthma cases? Are there more or fewer doctors per patient in this area? Are there specific services which are harder to access? Having an understanding of these questions, supported with accurate location data, will help form a sustainable and localised response.

5.   Location data is key to identify and mitigate future climate and disease risk

It is understood that disease outbreaks will become more frequent with a changing climate. The COVID pandemic demonstrated the importance of being able to quickly track cases of disease; locate available hospitals spaces and beds; and identify suitable locations for testing sites and vaccination centres. The ability to respond quickly and effectively is dependent on accurate geographic data at the local, regional and national level. It is also vital to be able to locate and predict who will be most at risk when it comes to more extreme weather events such as floods or heatwaves, in order to plan response and protect those who are most vulnerable.