Our Ec- friendly force on Day Surgery at HRI are leading the way with some stunning "green" ideas.

Matron Vicky Smith hailed their work saying : "I am continually so proud of the way my staff always go the extra mile in whatever is put to them."

She said Janet Winn was eco friendly and passionate about  reducing paper waste and in a very short time the team ahd come up with  four new ideas which could help reduce paper waste within our department.

They are:

* minimise the amount of paper within the care plans. By reviewing the care plans we can ensure the information is current, informative and succinct. the paediatric care plan can be reduced from 10 pages to 5 easily and two nurses will action this immediately.

* We aim to reduce the number of operating lists that are printed out. There is a tendency to print out several unnecessary lists.

*  when printing we only need to print the current page. Currently the printer will print an entire document where there is a page of wasted black lines.

*  we will see if we can stop using paper sheets for the tracker labels for sets. Possible alternatives were to have a few laminated sheets which will be reusable. This will be investigated further.

Janet highlighted all the work underway so see if she inspires you and your team. She said: 

" I have started a recycling initiative within our department and I'm pleased to say it has been going really well and most of our colleagues are on board. We have been separating the paper waste from the plastic waste and disposing of all the recyclable material in green bins.

"As well as a green issue, we also want to reduce the cost impact on the hospital by reducing what we send to landfill.

We have also been making 'EcoBricks' by filling plastic bottles with non recyclable materials. These are then passed on to my grandchild who has his school on board in order to pass these on to be used in a secondary manner. By working collectively we can be smart with how we impact the environment and change our working processes. I am very proud of all my colleagues who have helped and encouraged this idea and I believe the rewards will be great. "