HFMA 2019: Finance must lead NHS green agenda

In a Learning lab session on environmental sustainability, Rod Smith (pictured), project director at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: ‘Finance should be there leading in the NHS – not obstructing or following, but leading it.’

Not only was it the right thing to do, which could have a positive impact on demand for NHS services, but environmental projects could generate savings to help deliver cost improvement programmes (CIPs). 

‘We hear that trusts are struggling to find more and more CIPs, but if you look under the bonnet at some of the sustainability work, you will find not just financial savings but also other benefits.’

He acknowledged that finance staff generally did not think of environmental sustainability as part of their job description. ‘But I think it is – it’s part of delivering the overall strategy for the trust. Their job is not just about balancing the bottom line.’

Jimmy Greer, head of sustainability at the ACCA, told the workshop that its members had asked for support to deliver their organisations’ environmental aims. He added that finance teams had to be involved to operationalise these goals.

John Lelliot, a non-executive director at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Trust with a background in finance, said climate change was real and all who work in or use the NHS would be affected by it. Environmental sustainability was virtually invisible at board level, but its profile was on the rise.

‘We have to raise it further up the agenda – going to the board with a vision, strategic objectives and KPIs, looking at the savings we can make and how it can help with the CIP,’ he added.

Read more on how NHS organisations are tackling the green agenda in this month's Healthcare Finance