1st Edition

Environmentally Sustainable Primary Care Good for the planet, good for practices, good for patients

Edited By Matt Sawyer, Mike Tomson Copyright 2025
    322 Pages 33 Color & 15 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    322 Pages 33 Color & 15 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    322 Pages 33 Color & 15 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    This practical guide for primary care provides a context-specific introduction to the sustainability challenges associated with good health-care delivery and provides easy-to-implement yet impactful actions that can be taken to reduce and mitigate the impact of primary care on the living world while also looking at the impact of the changing planet on health care that people will encounter.

    The chapters address the following key questions: What is the issue? What can I do/what can my practice do? How do my actions help patients, practice, and planet? Included throughout are case studies, vignettes, and anecdotes of previous successful interventions, while a checklist of the most impactful actions for others to follow, as supported by the current evidence base, provides a convenient summary. References and additional resource recommendations give directions for further guidance. The book looks at the four pillars of primary care – dentistry, General Practice, optometry, and pharmacy – and includes international contributions.

    Providing invaluable direction to turn good intentions into meaningful action, this book will be invaluable to health professionals and practice managers across all primary care disciplines and to students preparing to enter practice in those fields. It will also be of interest to integrated care system administrators and to health policymakers.

    List of contributors

    Foreword by Rachel Stancliffe

    Foreword by Richard Smith

    Introduction

    1 Primary care and planetary health

    TAMSIN ELLIS AND MATT SAWYER

    2 Dentistry

    CIARA O’KANE AND DAVINDER RAJU

    3 General Practice

    VEENA AGGARWAL, ILONA HALE, HANNAH O’HARA, SEAN OWENS, JAMES MORTON, JUDITH PINNICK, MUNRO STEWART, SARAH WILLIAMS, AND RICHARD YIN

    4 Optometrists and opticians

    ANTONIA CHITTY AND ABI PAGE

    5 Pharmacy

    MIN NA EII, CLARE MURRAY, AND WENDY TYLER-BATT

    6 Planetary health in a GP surgery

    MIKE TOMSON

    7 Achieving appropriate investigation, prescribing, and treatment

    TONY AVERY, TESSA LEWIS, AND NEAL MASKREY

    8 Lifestyle medicine

    LYDIA VOGELAAR-KELLY AND MATT SAWYER

    9 Sustainable quality improvement

    ALICE CLACK AND FRANCES MORTIMER

    10 Estates and energy

    BEN HOLT AND MATT SAWYER

    11 Travel and transport

    MATT SAWYER

    12 Procurement of goods and services

    MATT SAWYER

    13 Air

    SINEAD MILLWOOD AND MALCOLM WHITE

    14 Water

    RICHARD HIXSON, GEORGIE SOWMAN, AND SHARON PFLEGER

    15 Land

    ANGELA WILSON

    16 Finance

    SPENCER CASEY AND DENISE SMITH

    17 Behaviour change

    MANDA BROOKMAN AND DENISE SMITH

    18 Working across organisations

    HELEN KINGSTON AND EMMA RADCLIFFE

    19 Managing eco-distress

    BECKI SMITH-TAYLOR

    20 Turning intentions into action

    MATT SAWYER AND MIKE TOMSON

    Appendix A: List of abbreviations

    Appendix B: Glossary

    Appendix C: Useful organisations

    Appendix D: Further reading and resources

    Index

    Biography

    Dr Matt Sawyer is a former GP, current Director of SEE Sustainability and a Carbon Literacy trainer, UK

    Dr Mike Tomson is a former GP (clinically retired), a medical educator coach and a Trustee for Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, previously Director of Greener Practice CIC, UK.