Towards a Sustainable Future in Rehabilitation Engineering​

​Climate change is the defining issue for the 21st century and addressing its challenges requires action across all sections – including healthcare.  Rehabilitation engineering services undertake in-house manufacturing of equipment and provide off-the-shelf equipment to patients in the community. These two activities have a significant carbon footprint, however, reducing this footprint is a complex problem. This webinar presents two examples from rehabilitation engineering centres and also a broader perspective from a sustainability planning manager. 

Rehabilitation engineering services undertake in-house manufacturing of equipment and provide off-the-shelf equipment to patients in the community. Equipment is provided on a long term loan basis and therefore requires to be maintained/repaired over its lifetime. These activities have a significant carbon footprint, however, reducing this footprint is a complex problem. This webinar presents two example sustainability projects from rehabilitation engineering centres, a look at how repairs in prosthetics and orthotics can be made more sustainable, and also provides a broader perspective from a sustainability planning manager.

The first talk will be delivered by Abigail Attwell (Senior Clinical Scientist, NHS Lothian) and is the perspective of the SMART Centre based in Edinburgh.  It outlines the development of a sustainability framework and presents four projects that demonstrate practical examples to reducing environmental impact. ​ 

In the second talk, Jacob Redwood-Thomas (Principal Clinical Scientist, Swansea Bay University Health Board) from the Swansea Rehabilitation Engineering Unit will present some of the challenges of sustainable in-house manufacturing.  Jacob will provide an insight into the some of the changes made to reduce overall CO2e of SREU in-house manufacturing facilities. 

In the third talk, Laurence Kenney (Professor at the University of Salford) will discuss the latest research on the repair, maintenance, and reuse of prosthetic and orthotic devices, including recent work to better understand current practices.  

The final talk, delivered by Hayley Beharrell (Sustainability Planning Manager, Swansea Bay University Health Board): What, why and how of becoming more sustainable. Hayley will cover why sustainability is critical in delivering health services, what we can utilise to become more sustainable, approaches you can take, and how to enable support. It will consider both environmental impacts of rehabilitation engineering and how we can build resilience!