NHS Cheshire and Merseyside publishes Green Plan for 2025-2028

This Earth Day (22 April 2025), NHS Cheshire and Merseyside is proud to launch its refreshed Green Plan – a bold, practical blueprint for how we will decarbonise healthcare, boost resilience, and create healthier communities across our region.

The links between planetary and human health are undeniable. Rising temperatures, air pollution and extreme weather events directly impact physical and mental wellbeing, exacerbating respiratory diseases, heat-related illnesses, and health inequalities.

Our refreshed Green Plan reinforces our commitment to a sustainable, net zero NHS that supports both people and planet, and revolves around three key priorities for 2025 and beyond:

1. Expanding nature’s role in health

We’re working with local authorities, Natural England and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare to deliver local nature recovery strategies (LNRS) on NHS-owned land, increasing habitats that benefit both biodiversity and community health:

• Green corridors linking urban areas to natural spaces, reducing isolation and promoting active travel.
• Therapeutic landscapes on NHS sites, from sensory gardens to small allotments.

Why it matters: Access to nature reduces GP visits for anxiety and depression by up to 30% – prevention in its purest form.

2. Climate adaptation

Extreme weather isn’t a future threat – it’s here and already impacting our communities and infrastructure. Climate adaptation involves adapting to the current and future effects of climate change in order to reduce vulnerability and build resilience to its impacts. It involves implementing strategies and measures to protect communities, ecosystems, economies and infrastructure from the negative effects of global warming:

• Identifying infrastructure at risk of overheating or flooding and implementing suitable measures to reduce or eliminate the risk.
• Working together to ensure that climate risks are addressed and considered in the commissioning and provision of all healthcare services and assets.

Why it matters: For every £1 spent on adaptation, we save £4 in avoided health costs.

3. Heat decarbonisation 

In Cheshire and Merseyside approximately 83% of energy use in Trusts is gas and we have until 2032 to transition to cleaner, renewable sources of energy:

• Switching to LED lighting is a ‘quick win’ in carbon and financial savings. LED lamps have an average life of up to 50,000 hours – 30 times longer than incandescent and 5 times longer than fluorescent lamps.
• NHS Trusts and local authorities across Cheshire and Merseyside are implementing or exploring solar, geothermal, and tidal energy generation opportunities along with district heat networks.

Why it matters: Heat decarbonisation across Cheshire and Merseyside’s NHS estates will eliminate 100% of Scope 1 gas emissions (15% of our operational carbon) and save an annual £6.8m of energy wasted by inefficient heating systems.

The full Green Plan can be found on the sustainability section of our website.

For more information about Earth Day 2025, visit www.earthday.org