GLOUCESTERSHIRE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST MINUTES OF THE SUSTAINABILTY COMMITTEE HELD IN THE BOARDROOM, 1 COLLEGE LAWN ON 31 st JANUARY 2011 THESE MINUTES MAY BE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC AND PERSONS OUTSIDE OF THE TRUST AS PART OF THE TRUST S COMPLIANCE WITH THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 PRESENT Maria Bond MB Non Executive Director - Chair Sally Pearson SP Director of Clinical Strategy Sr Elly-Maria Pantekoek Sr EMP Public Governor Jen Goode JG Environment and Sustainability Manager Jennifer Schroder JS Procurement Manager Mike Byrne MB Catering Manager Catherine Boyce CB Clinical Strategy Manager Kate Jeal KJ Communications Specialist Gill Bliss GB Staff Side Representative Georgina Smith GS Corporate Sustainability Manager NHS Gloucestershire Mike Seeley MS Assistant Director of Human Resources Caroline Parker CP Assistant Director of Finance APOLOGIES David Hastings DH Acting Director of Property and Medical Engineering Val Dyer VD GHNHSFT PPI Forum Member Cheryl Stockton GS Staff Governor Jenny Hincks JH Public Governor IN ATTENDANCE Mark Phelpstead MP Sustainability Officer Sarah Smith SS Clinical Strategy Secretary ITEM DETAILS ACTION 001/11 MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON MONDAY 12 TH JULY 2011 These were AGREED as a correct record 002/11 MATTERS ARISING The matters arising were updated by the Committee. 035/10 Patient Activity JG agreed to include patient activity in future quarterly monitoring reports. 035/10 Excessive Packaging for Office Related Products JS reported that the contract was out to tender and that the new contract was expected to be in place by October. Packaging criteria were included in the specification and would be closely monitored. 041/10 Lease Car Scheme and Business Travel MS informed the group that a single car lease scheme was now in place, with mileage rates in line with HMRC guidance. Counter-signing of authorisations by the HR department would enable the scheme to be monitored. It was recognised that two business travel mileage rates were currently applied, reflecting the cc of the car engine. Members enquired whether it might be possible to introduce some type of incentive to encourage the use of smaller capacity cars. It was recognised that there might be some practical constraints in doing this, but agreed that MS and GB would look at the feasibility of this proposal and report back to the next meeting. 003/10- Carbon Reduction JG agreed to include income generated and other data relating to the cardboard baler in future quarterly monitoring reports. 003/11 QUARTERLY MONITORING - CARBON REDUCTION, ENERGY, WASTE Absolute Carbon Emissions These continued to rise and reflected the higher winter demand up until the end of November. The impact of the snow at the year end Sustainability Committee January 2011 Page 1 of 5 JG MS & GB JG
would be seen in the next quarterly report. The commissioning of the new Women s Centre had also had an impact on the level of emissions. Although energy minimising construction and technical solutions were used in new buildings, modern healthcare technology often brought increased resource consumption. It was noted that the Trust s data were shared with the Gloucestershire Environment Partnership. SP reflected that it might not be widely understood that in order to reduce carbon emissions, a radical change would be required in the way health care was delivered MB proposed that the Trust should benchmark its performance against that of other Trusts. It was noted that emissions per metre squared were reported annually. Following discussion, it was agreed that information should be sought on trends in carbon emissions and resource use in other acute Trusts, and that benchmarking information should be provided in future quarterly reports. It was also agreed that post-occupancy reviews of new Trust facilities should be included in the Sustainability Action Plan for next year. Water - The Committee noted that Legionella testing requirements contributed to the use of water resources, although new and upgraded facilities incorporated a range of water-saving measures. GB expressed some concern that in some areas the time taps were left running for flushing purposes might be greater than required. The importance of meeting health and safety requirements was recognised, but it was agreed that current frequencies should be reviewed by the relevant group to ensure that procedures and durations remained appropriate to the different areas. Recycling - JG reported that cardboard recycling had increased and that porters were now more involved in this. JG informed the Committee the further work was required on how cans and plastic could be recycled more widely, particularly in the light of the restricted space on wards for recycling storage bins. It was likely that further resources would be needed for the collection and segregation of waste. The Committee noted the quarterly reports. 004/11 CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT JG explained the financial implications of changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, which now imposed a tax of 12 per tonne of carbon. The current estimated cost to the Trust was in the region of 300,000. MB identified the need for Trust business cases to assess the impact of developments and change from a carbon reduction and sustainability perspective. JG would forward information for inclusion in the business case template which was currently being reviewed. 005/11 ENVIRONMENTAL PARTNERSHIP AND ASSOCIATED GROUPS SP informed the Committee that the Local Area Agreement would no longer exist in the future and that a review of partnership working in the county was underway. The Environmental Partnership was not expected to remain in its current format, although it was likely that the Public Sector Group with its more operational focus would continue. This group was a helpful in sharing good practice and agreed to report back at future meetings on discussion and learning emerging from this and other groups. 006/11 CARBON MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME Members noted the formal completion of Phase 1 of the Carbon Management Programme. SP observed that although the Trust s programme did not appear to be lacking any significant areas, the impact of this was not yet seen in current trend data. 007/11 SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY JG reminded colleagues that it was recommended that Trusts should have a Boardapproved Sustainability Strategy and shared an early draft, on which comments were invited. This would be underpinned by an annual sustainability work programme, and was consistent with a number of the Trust s strategic objectives. In the course of discussion, the importance of embedding the strategy across the entire organisation was identified, together with the need for developing effective ways of communicating individual and Divisional responsibilities and accountability for sustainability. It was recognised that this was currently an area of weakness within the Sustainability Committee January 2011 Page 2 of 5 JG & MP Estates JG SP
Strategy and, potentially, one which a network of Environmental Champions might assist in addressing. Whilst GS indicated that Environmental Champions had been successful in NHS Gloucestershire, the Committee recognised that in any future proposal of this nature it would be essential to demonstrate more clearly and tangibly to the Board how Environmental Champions could contribute to meeting Trust targets. A number of examples relating to potential savings in overnight lighting and heating systems were identified and Sr EMP proposed the use of localised energy monitoring systems. MP informed the group that although new schemes such as the Women s Centre and Beacon House did have their own metering, resources to fund the business case for implementing wide-scale local metering had not yet been identified. The need to reflect back to staff the impact of energy or resource saving measures was also highlighted. would follow this up with Estates colleagues. CP advised colleagues that current developments in service line accounting should offer the opportunity to identify some estates-related aspects of relevance to Divisions. MB suggested that the existing Fire Warden role and training could possibly be extended to incorporate the responsibilities associated with the role of an Environmental Champion. It was agreed that the feasibility and implications of broadening the existing Fire Warden remit should be explored. In the course of further discussion it was agreed, that: a section should be added to the draft on the need to embed the strategy and promote widespread ownership of the sustainability agenda amongst departments and individual staff (e.g. local metering, capturing and feeding back the impact of changes/initiatives to staff; setting Divisional objectives and developing associated measures; inclusion of a carbon reduction/sustainability element within Trust business cases). Attention should be drawn to this area in the covering paper; sections 6.1 and 6.2 should be expanded with more detail on targets and milestones within these, and the need to make progress; where it was not possible to identify measures for any of the overarching objectives, the objective should be removed; Annexe 1 should demonstrate and quantify the contribution made by the various elements towards the Trust s targets to date where specific data were unavailable, the group agreed that estimates could be included; the Sustainability Action Plan would form Annexe 2, subject to the following: the notes column should be changed to capture the quantified contribution which individual tasks were expected to make to meeting Trust targets it was recognised that some tasks might fall into the category of enabling tasks; inclusion of an objective for each task, together with milestones and dates to enable progress to be monitored; further review and addition of other relevant tasks by leads, to CB. the draft strategy, action plan and accompanying paper to be included on the agenda of the March Board meeting, following circulation of the final draft with highlighted changes to members of the Committee for comment. SP raised concerns about recharges for services that were hosted by GHNHSFT for other organisations, and identified the need to ensure that the Trust recovered relevant shares of the Carbon Reduction Commitment tax on carbon within rental charges. It was agreed that this should be investigated. Director Estates & Facilities All CB All CB JG/CB 008/11 ACTION PLANS The Committee noted the progress with the current work plan SP highlighted 2.1, the desktop initialisation project, which was currently on hold. SP would raise this with the IM&T Board. It was noted that funding for the replacement of the two boilers at GRH had been secured externally but had been deferred until next year. A decision on the transfer of funding into 2011/12 was expected shortly. Changes to the format and content of the plan for 2011-2012 should be made as agreed in the earlier discussion on the Sustainability Strategy (ref 07/11). SP All Sustainability Committee January 2011 Page 3 of 5
Once approved by the Board, the Strategy and accompanying action plan should be circulated to Divisions. 009/11 GOOD CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP MODEL CB presented the summary results of the annual assessment which had been undertaken, by the leads for the various areas, against the criteria of the Good Corporate Citizenship model. Use of the model was encouraged at national level in the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy, and the contributed to the partnership section of the Trust s performance management framework. A number of points were noted: the 2012 national target was for organisations to score 37% in all areas of the test. the Trust s scores were generally higher than the current national and regional average scores for all areas of activity. the greatest change was in the score for the facilities management section, due to the work which had been undertaken during the year in the Carbon Management Programme; this also accounted for the slight increase in relation to buildings. a more modest increase was seen in relation to procurement, where some of the delayed national initiatives had now started to move forward again. although no change was seen in the travel and workforce scores, progress had been made, for example, with the recent introduction of the e-travel claims scheme. As this work came to fruition, this would be reflected in future scores. the work which had been undertaken on the stakeholder engagement was reflected in the slightly increased score for Community Engagement, which was in line with the regional average score. Community Engagement in the context of this model encompassed a wide range of areas, including joint planning, formal employee volunteering schemes, sustainable food choices. It also included use of the organisation s buildings and facilities as wider community assets, where because of its function and lack of recreational or similar facilities it was difficult for the Trust to score. Following discussion, it was agreed that: the assessment was a reasonable reflection of the Trust s current position; the status of this performance indicator should remain as green. 010/11 OTHER AREAS OF SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN THE TRUST Procurement JS drew attention to a number of projects on which she was working, including one in conjunction with one of the renal consultants and the National Green Nephrology Project Group and a service development in the Forest of Dean. The importance of assessing the impact of projects and service change was identified, together with the need to identify meaningful measures and capture data to demonstrate the impact of change. JS undertook to take account of this in these projects.. Other service changes SP indicated that a similar approach should be taken to capture data before and after the changes in service associated with the development of the Hereford Radiotherapy Unit. SP undertook to draw attention to the need to consider carbon costs and other sustainability issues in the context of other emerging changes Business Travel Following the successful introduction of the e-travel claim system MS reported this would contribute to assessing the transport element of the carbon footprint and enable the Trust to monitor trends. MS expected to be in a position to report back to the July meeting. 011/11 LOCAL PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENTS AND OTHER INITIATIVES IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE The Committee note a number of other proposed changes in the Gloucestershire Conference and associated partnership arrangements. GS updated members on several areas of progress with energy projects within NHS Gloucestershire including, boiler replacements and roof insulation, automatic lighting, Sustainability Committee January 2011 Page 4 of 5 CB JS SP MS
inclusion of a section on sustainability in induction; introduction of a cost-neutral mixed scheme for recycling. 012/11 COMMITTEE WORK PROGRAMME FOR 2011-2012 Members noted the draft business work programme. It was agreed that this should include some short presentations on key areas of work. Proposed subjects included: buildings and the new women s centre (April); e-claims, transport and travel (July); procurement and renal project (October). 013/11 ANY OTHER BUSINESS SP informed members that Clair Chilvers, the Trust s new Chair, had requested that a summary of all key Trust meetings be provided for Trust Governors, capturing the key areas discussed. This would first be shared with MB and Sr EMP. 014/11 DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING Monday 18 th April 10.30am, Room 4 at Sandford Education Centre, Cheltenham CB Sustainability Committee January 2011 Page 5 of 5