Planet centred care - How to talk about this stuff
Oct 14, 2023
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This podcast explores how to effectively talk about sustainability and climate change with colleagues and patients. It features guests who share their expertise on sustainable healthcare and the impact of climate change on human health. The hosts discuss the importance of listening and understanding patients' perspectives, giving ourselves permission to talk about climate change, and finding common ground and shared values. They also touch on the relationship between asthma and climate change and the use of humor as a tool to engage in these conversations.
Identify personal interests and concerns to introduce sustainability in conversations.
Normalize sustainable healthcare by incorporating it into everyday discussions and patient consultations.
Use humor, humility, and collective action to engage colleagues and patients in sustainable healthcare.
Deep dives
Starting the Conversation: Finding Entry Points
Starting conversations about sustainable healthcare can be challenging, but finding entry points can help. It's important to listen to patients and colleagues to identify their interests and concerns, and then use that as a springboard to introduce the topic of sustainability. This can be done by highlighting the benefits of sustainable actions, such as saving money, improving health outcomes, or reducing the impact on the environment. It's also important to avoid assuming that patients or colleagues aren't interested in climate change, as many people are concerned about the issue. By starting the conversation in a personalized and non-judgmental way, it becomes easier to engage others and create meaningful dialogue about sustainable healthcare.
Normalizing Sustainable Healthcare
Normalizing sustainable healthcare involves integrating sustainable practices into everyday conversations and routines. By making sustainability a core part of healthcare discussions, practitioners can emphasize the interconnectedness of environmental factors and health outcomes. This can be done by incorporating climate change and its impacts on health into patient consultations. For example, discussing the relationship between climate change and asthma exacerbations or heat-related illnesses. By framing sustainability as a health issue, clinicians can emphasize the shared responsibility of healthcare professionals and patients in addressing climate change and promoting sustainable actions.
Humor and Humility in Conversations
Using humor and humility can help to navigate potentially challenging conversations about sustainable healthcare. By acknowledging one's own conflicts, anxieties, or mistakes, healthcare professionals can create a safe space for dialogue and connection with colleagues and patients. Humor can be a powerful tool to address heavy topics, such as climate change, and make them more approachable. However, it's important to remember that humor should not trivialize the issue, but rather help to engage others in a lighthearted yet meaningful way.
Collective Action and Shared Values
Engaging in collective action and promoting shared values can foster a sense of camaraderie and support among healthcare professionals. Collaborative efforts, such as forming sustainability groups or implementing ward-based actions, can create a sense of community and make sustainable practices a collective responsibility. This approach helps to reinforce the idea that sustainability is not an individual endeavor, but rather a shared commitment within the healthcare setting. By working together, healthcare professionals can amplify their impact and inspire others to join in.
Starting Small and Taking Action
Getting started and taking action is crucial in promoting sustainable healthcare. It only takes one conversation or one small action to make a difference. Healthcare professionals should give themselves permission to start the conversation and not be deterred by initial challenges or uncertainties. Starting small and building from there allows for learning and growth. Over time, sustainable practices can become normalized and integrated into everyday healthcare, creating a positive impact on both health outcomes and the environment.
We’ve heard throughout the series from people who have a passion for sustainability, and have successfully made changes in their organisations to reduce the planetary impact of their work. In doing so, they will have recruited other people who have a similar outlook - but they will have also convinced people who aren’t prioritising sustainability.
In this last podcast of the series, we’re delving into that - how to talk to colleagues and patients, in ways which connect with their own needs and preferences.
To help with that, we’re joined by David Pencheon, director of the Sustainable Development Unit for NHS England, who’s been successfully talking about these issues for years, and Kate Wylie, executive director of Doctors for the Environment Australia.
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