Climate change experts need funds to research vital questions, conference hears

Researchers and funding bodies have pledged to ramp up their response to harmful climate change at a UK summit on sustainable health and social care.

David Pencheon, director of the Sustainable Development Unit of the NHS in England, said that the meeting on Tuesday 6 November organised by the healthcare think tank the King’s Fund had achieved “breakthrough” commitments and had paved the way for developing a new research and development strategy on sustainable healthcare.

He said that a small task force comprising research experts, funders, commissioners, and patients’ representatives would now coordinate efforts to fill gaps in research and act on the evidence for sustainable practices in the NHS and public health systems.

Pencheon also said that funding bodies such as the National Institute for Health Research, Wellcome Trust, and Bupa Foundation had agreed to try to dismantle the “barriers” to funding research for interdisciplinary …