Winner of Best Waste Reduction – iiE Awards 2020
Northampton General Hospital is a medium sized hospital, caring for over 350,000 people within the county of Northamptonshire. With over 500 staff, the hospital carries out over 50,000 operations a year and have seen a 9% increase in patient visitation over the past 5 years.
With large amounts of single-use plastics, Northampton General Hospital have worked incredibly hard to remove waste and meet their waste reduction targets, and as a result received iiE’s Best Waste Reduction Award in 2020.
Northampton General Hospital operate across several departments and have engaged employees with their campaign Small Action Big Impact. This has encouraged staff to make over 800 pledges to reduce the quantity of waste they create.
Utilising the delivery of weekly waste audits and feedback forms across the hospital, Northampton General Hospital have implemented a solid waste management system. Simple solutions have been used, such as providing a recycling bin alongside general waste and overhauling their use of single use plastic. The hospital installed water fountains, contributing to a 220,00 reduction in plastic cups and replaced most of their plastic straws and cutlery with reusable alternatives. These actions have saved significant expenses for the trust, improved patient safety, and helped to achieve remarkable environmental benefits.
To further reduce clinical and company waste, Northampton General Hospital have been taking advantage of the online Warp-it platform which has been actively promoted across their facilities. This ensures teams are making use of internal resources before buying new products – reducing their waste as well as expenditure. Over 2000 scrub hats have been substituted with reusable alternatives and the hospital is also pioneering reusable theatre gowns which will save a tonne of clinical waste per month.
With all of their hard work to reduce waste, Northampton General Hospital have maintained iiE’s highest certification level with Green accreditation for the 5th year running.