Five minutes with . . . Terry Kemple on the Green Impact for Health toolkit

“We all know that we need to look after the planet better and be more sustainable, and we’re all concerned about climate change. But, as a GP, what can you actually do? The answer is to ‘think global but act local.’

“With the Green Impact for Health toolkit we wanted to keep it simple. So we’ve come up with a variety of actions that range from easy to moderate to difficult, all of which are relevant for general practice. The toolkit, which is free for all GPs, explains why you should make these changes: what the evidence is and why it’s important. You can also use the toolkit to learn from other people who have already done these things.

“The first level starts with simple things like double sided printing, using fairtrade products, using paper that’s sourced from properly managed forests, or making sure that you’re not wasting energy by turning things off when they aren’t needed. We started very simply so you can enter at any level. You don’t have to dive straight in, you can just dip your toes.

“We’re hoping that you’ll look at the toolkit and think, ‘Oh, actually this suggestion is interesting, we could do that.’ If you really get into it, you can get points for what you’ve done. At the end of the annual toolkit cycle, which is basically the academic year, we get local university students to audit the work that practices have done and they’re awarded points, which correspond with bronze, silver, and gold levels. There’s also an overall winner, which is the practice at the gold level with the most points.

“A practice from Frome in Somerset was the overall winner of last year’s award. The idea of using the toolkit was raised by one of the salaried GPs and he managed to persuade the practice manager to take on the leadership role and get the rest of the team involved. So, from the GPs point of view, they had to do very little apart from encourage use of the toolkit.

“We appreciate that GPs can’t do everything, that’s obvious, and these are difficult times. But all organisations need to think about how they can be more environmentally friendly. On the other side of the coin, these changes will save you money because they mean that your practice is being more efficient and effective. So, it’s worth investing in the toolkit measures to save money.

“After each annual cycle we review the criteria in the toolkit and relaunch them so that they keep up-to-date. For example, the first time we ran this, four years ago, social prescribing didn’t exist. But in the past four years it’s increased and now there are lots of resources in the toolkit around social prescribing and how to do it.

“As GPs we are role models; we are highly visible. If someone sees their GP cycling through the town rather than driving an SUV, that has an impact on people. If they see their GP going on a parkrun and encouraging others to join in, that has an effect on people. GPs are role models in their communities and we reach everywhere in the UK. If we’re being environmentally friendly, and promoting this in a sensible way, then we’re going to influence our patients.”