Electric ambulances to help NHS reduce emissions
Health service starts trials as it sets out to be first in the world to eliminate its carbon footprint by 2045
THE NHS aims to roll out electric ambulances and be the first health service to eliminate its carbon footprint by 2045.
About 4 per cent of the UK’S greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the NHS, and when patient and visitor transport and supply chains are included, its annual output is roughly the same as all of Slovenia.
Yesterday it announced plans to develop and test the world’s first hydrogen- electric hybrid double- crewed ambulance by 2022. It plans to roll out zero-emissions vehicles across the rest of its fleet by 2032, which could include fully electric vehicles.
West Midlands Ambulance Service has announced trials of the UK’S first allelectric ambulance, which will have a top speed of 75mph, a range of 105 to 110 miles and recharge in four hours.
Anthony Marsh, the ambulance service’s chief executive, said the move was a “sensible step” in light of the clean air zone due to be introduced in Birmingham city centre. He said the service had already incorporated aircraft-style technology to build the lightest ambulances in the country.
“This has continually reduced our impact on the environment by lowering our CO2 levels and ensured that patients receive the highest standards of safety and comfort.”
Falck, an emergency and medical transport services firm which has contracts with the NHS in London, last year started its own trial of electric ambulances, citing Sadiq Khan’s plans for a zero-emissions zone in the city by 2025.
A spokesman for the NHS said the planned hydrogen-electric ambulances were still in construction and it was not known what their top speeds would be.
The NHS said patient safety would remain paramount in its considerations, and paramedics are understood to support the move to electric ambulances.
The initiative to build the hydrogenelectric hybrid is part of a governmentbacked project to build low emission vehicles that received £2.4 million in funding last year.
The NHS believes up to a third of new asthma cases might be avoided as a result of efforts to cut emissions.
Among the other measures set out in the plan include trying to avoid unnecessary hospital visits by bringing doctors closer to patients, possibly in their own homes, and reducing the three million unnecessary trips to A&E each year.
It is also likely to mean the permanent use of digital GP appointments. The NHS estimates 58 million miles of travelling were avoided this way during the peak three months of lockdown.
Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, said: “2020 has been dominated by Covid-19 and is the most pressing health emergency facing us. But undoubtedly climate change poses the most profound long-term threat to the health of the nation.”