The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is seeking feedback from hospital pharmacists on its green guide to making professional pharmacy practice more environmentally sustainable.
Two guides have been created by the RPS, one for hospital and one for community pharmacies, to raise awareness and capability of reducing environmental impacts and carbon emissions within the sector.
The green guides, which have been developed through multi-stakeholder feedback, set out actions that pharmacy staff and settings can achieve to help the NHS meet its net zero targets.
To support the documents, in spring 2024 the RPS will launch a Greener Pharmacy Toolkit, allowing pharmacies to self-accredit their sustainability status.
Pharmacies will be able to upload evidence and write reflections, resulting in a ‘green achievement level’ badge of bronze, silver or gold.
Speaking earlier this year on the announcement of the guides‘ creation, Elen Jones, director lead for the RPS Environmental Sustainability programme, said: ‘We want to support teams to identify areas where they can make sustainable changes to decrease the environmental impact of the services and clinical care they provide.
‘Pharmacy can make a huge contribution to the goal of making health services more environmentally sustainable and this guidance and accreditation scheme will help us all move towards net zero.‘
Minna Eii, co-founder of Pharmacy Declares and lead author for the RPS guidance, added: ‘Many staff and organisations in the UK are looking for ways to reduce their environmental impacts but are unsure where to start. This pharmacy green accreditation scheme will be a great tool for all pharmacies to help the NHS meet its net zero ambition and guide individuals that are just starting on this journey.‘
With the guides now complete, the RPS has launched a consultation, with pharmacists invited to share feedback via an online survey to help ensure the guides are ‘current, clear, relevant and fit for purpose’.
The RPS Greener Pharmacy Guide contains six overarching domains, which are: people, clinical practice, travel, resource use, information and communications technology (ICT), and operations and strategy.
Each domain lists various benefits of suggested actions for the pharmacy sector such as time saving, cost saving, improving health and wellbeing of patients and staff, as well as waste reduction.
Hospital pharmacists are asked to read the green guide relevant to their practice – with detailed and simplified versions available online – and then complete the consultation questions.
The online consultation deadline has been extended and will now run until 22 November 2023.
In September, the European Respiratory Society issued a consensus statement on climate change and respiratory health, while the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) presented its recommendations for climate change action in pharmacy.
A version of this article was originally published by our sister publication The Pharmacist.
