The New Healthcare Sustainability

Until now, most of the conversation about healthcare sustainability has centred around reducing the - not insubstantial - impact the healthcare sector has on the environment. More specifically, efforts have been focused on how this can be achieved through   reducing emissions, migrating to the use of renewables, and streamlining procurement, logistics and supply chain processes to lessen industrial pollution.

However, in 2022 the topic of sustainability has become more nuanced. Whilst it still incorporates the wider environmental factors and economic factors that have always been at play, the modern perspective on sustainability has shifted its focus onto social factors: increased ESG investment; greater transparency from business and government; and meaningful reductions in global inequalities. This is particularly relevant in the healthcare sector and raises the question: how can we work towards improving the health and wellbeing of the population, within the parameters of the limited resources available?

IMPROVING SUSTAINABILITY IN HEALTHCARE

The UK Government’s commitment to improving sustainability in healthcare is evident in initiatives including NHS Digital’s Paperless 2020 and NHS England’s Digital Transformation, whilst the NHS Long Term Plan targets sustainability gains across measures including digital transformation and personalised care. The plan outlines sustainability goals including:

  • ‘Provide digital services and tools to give people more control over their own health and the care they receive from the NHS’ and

  • ‘Give health and care staff the technology they need to help them complete administrative tasks more quickly, freeing up time to spend with patients’.

PNEUMA’S COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY

At Pneuma, we have a strong commitment to sustainability. As a small business, we pride ourselves in our ability to offer a highly personalised service, whilst prioritising the wellbeing of both staff and service users.

Our Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners - PWPs - are fully trained to provide online and remote support to IAPT step 2 service users in the community, in part through the use of digital tools, telephone and teleconferencing assessments and interventions.

Furthermore, our Virtually Integrated Model (VIM) feeds directly into existing digital platforms, seamlessly increasing capacity whilst ensuring staff are properly supported at all times. Pneuma can provide the digital platform to manage each service user's journey, from referral through to analysis of therapeutic outcomes; helping you to provide cost effective, evidence-based, guided self-help interventions, ensuring clinical governance and utilising efficient digital processes.

This innovative, sustainable approach to mental health support improves efficiency in community teams, leading to:

  • More streamlined services

  • Improved operational efficiency

  • Reduced clinical risk

  • Improved patient outcomes, because patients are more involved in their care journey.

Pneuma Healthcare’s approach is closely aligned with the NHS’s sustainability goals, as well as the broader social sustainability goals which are being embraced on a global scale. At Pneuma, we put people first.