This environmental guidance is for businesses that provide healthcare and associated services. This includes alternative therapists, care homes, community healthcare centres, dental surgeries, dispensing pharmacies, healthcare clinics, as well as healthcare management companies and providers.
Find out how to:
- deal with healthcare waste, such as clinical waste, offensive waste, sharps and medical laboratory waste
- avoid causing pollution when you use hazardous substances, such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals
- protect surface waters and ground waters
- reduce, reuse and recycle your waste.
This guidance is relevant to healthcare professionals, such as dentists, dispensing pharmacists, doctors, medical laboratory technicians, nurses, physicians, practice managers, and practitioners.
Environmental impacts of healthcare businesses
Healthcare and associated service providers can have a number of impacts on the environment. Examples include:
- air emissions from your boilers, vehicles, kitchen and laundry facilities
- energy use from equipment and machinery, lighting, and heating and cooling
- land contamination from accidental spills of chemicals and oils and potential contamination from the past use of your site
- noise pollution from sources such as equipment, machinery, deliveries and general vehicle movements
- waste disposal such as food waste, clinical wastes, potentially infectious waste, unwanted medicines, excreted medicines and their breakdown products and worn-out fixtures and fittings
- water use for watering grounds, and water use in kitchens, bathrooms and toilets.
How can NetRegs help you?
Our guidance could help you to:
- avoid prosecution and receive fewer visits from environmental regulators
- increase efficiency and productivity
- reduce your operating costs
- be more likely to obtain business from government bodies and large businesses that require their business partners to manage their environmental impacts effectively
- improve your reputation amongst staff, customers and the public
- increase the chance of securing funding to expand your business by demonstrating that your environmental impacts are well managed.
