Sustaining success

Guy’s and St Thomas’ was highly commended in three categories of the NHS Sustainability Awards which were held at Imperial College in South Kensington on Wednesday 17 May.

The Trust was recognised in the following areas:

• Food – in recognition of the catering team’s drive to increase food waste recycling and their efforts to prepare sustainable food for patients which is ethically sourced and meets nutritional guidelines, which last year led to the Trust earning the Soil Association’s Food for Life Catering Mark bronze award
• Finance – working in partnership with contractors Bywaters to cut costs and improve waste management by reducing the amount of waste generated by the Trust overall and increasing recycling rates
• Leadership – an individual nomination for Senior Radiographer Val Kostas, who has led a programme of improvements in his department and across his clinical directorate.

The Trust was also shortlisted in the Workforce category for the SAVE (Sustainable Actions delivering Valuable Efficiencies) programme, which is led by Sustainability Officer Teresa Agudo.

SAVE works with each directorate in the Trust to engage them with sustainability in order to save a minimum of £10,000 a year per directorate. It is closely linked with the Trust’s Fit for the Future programme which aims to improve quality, safety and efficiency.

Alexandra Hammond, Associate Director for Sustainability, says: “Being recognised across such a wide range of areas – patient food, finance and clinical leadership – shows our efforts as a Trust to truly embed sustainability into our everyday activities.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the team and really look forward to further rolling out our staff engagement programme to drive this agenda forward even further. Every single person who works at the Trust has a role to play.”