22nd April 2024
In support of World Earth Day 2024 (#EarthDay), we are delighted to broadcast our latest iHV Podcast with Professor Charlotte McArdle (Deputy Chief Nursing Officer – Quality, Safety, Sustainability and Women’s Health) who leads the nursing profession’s response to sustainable healthcare in England.
Professor Charlotte McArdle, Deputy Chief Nursing Officer – Quality, Safety, Sustainability and Women’s Health
Our latest iHV Podcast broadcast focuses on the important topic of protecting our planet, which really is everyone’s business. This episode takes a deep dive into the world of sustainability and health equity. What’s the scale of the problem? How serious is it? And, most importantly, what can we do about it? – both as a whole system, and also specifically for everyone working in health visiting. How can we focus our efforts to make the biggest difference?
iHV Podcasts focus on matters that will be of interest to health visitors, and those working in public health for babies, children and families. In each of our podcasts, we focus on an important public health topic, with brilliant guests who are experts in their field, asking: what needs to change, why, and how to get there.
In this episode, our CEO, Alison Morton, is joined by Professor Charlotte McArdle. Charlotte is the Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at NHS England and is leading policy work on a range of Quality, Safety and Women’s Health improvement programmes. Alongside this, Charlotte leads the nursing profession’s response to sustainable healthcare in England, recognising the role nurses and midwives play to reduce climate change, and making strong links between the health of the planet and the health of the population.
Charlotte co-authored the report Nurses for Health Equity in partnership with Sir Michael Marmot in 2021 and has helped to shape the important pillar of “Protecting our planet” in the new CNO England plan for nursing and midwifery.
Charlotte is a highly respected nursing leader. As former Chief Nursing Officer in Northern Ireland, Charlotte was the head of the Nursing and Midwifery professions. She is a graduate of the Florence Nightingale Executive Leadership Programme and the International Council of Nurses Global Nurse Leaders Programme. Charlotte has received an honorary doctorate and is a Visiting Professor at Ulster University, and is a Sigma Nursing liaison officer to the United Nations.
In this episode, Charlotte and Alison discuss:
- The importance of nurses’, midwives’ and health visitors’ role in health equity – tackling the social determinants of health, including preventing global emergencies, such as climate change.
- The background to the “Nurses for Health Equity” report and subsequent steps that are being taken across the globe to build a united “voice” for the nursing family which has the potential to drive real change.
- The forthcoming CNO Plan for Nursing and Midwifery in England, particularly the pillar focused on “protecting our planet”.
- Charlotte concludes with her hopes for focused action by nurses, midwives and health visitors in four key areas:
- Prevention and early intervention – working together with “one voice”, engaging in population health approaches.
- Quality improvement applied to climate change – using improvement science methods to lead innovation.
- Co-production – working with people, families and communities to develop new sustainability approaches.
- Decarbonising our care processes – for example, reducing the use of single use plastics, and supporting families with ways to become more sustainable, including various approaches to address the current high carbon footprint of disposable nappies, sanitary and period products.
If you want to learn more about nursing, sustainability and protecting our planet, Professor Charlotte McArdle has co-authored the report, “Nurses for Health Equity”, published in 2021.
At her CNO Summit in November 2023, Chief Nursing Officer for England Dame Ruth May shared a vision for the future, a vision for our collective professions, a vision for nursing and midwifery – titled New Horizons: Inspiring a new direction for nursing and midwifery in England. It is based on 7Ps one of which is protecting the planet. We hope to hear more about the plan in the near future.
Other helpful resources on this topic:
- Greener NHS web pages focused on sustainability and supporting staff with the transition to NetZero: https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/. You can also subscribe to their monthly newsletter here
- UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKACC): https://ukhealthalliance.org/
- Ride for their Lives: https://ridefortheirlives.net/ has a ride coming up on 9 June 2024 in Regents Park. It would be great to have some health visitors participating in this event.
- Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health climate change resources: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/key-topics/climate-change and sign up to their newsletter here
- DEFRA report on the environmental impact of nappies: https://randd.defra.gov.uk/ProjectDetails?ProjectId=20622
