Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS Trusts have policies on reduction of landfill wastage of reusable NHS equipment.

The Department published the inaugural Medical Technology Strategy in February 2023, which included a focus on improving resource efficiency within the sector. Presently, through our Design for Life Programme, we are working with industry, the health and care system, and academic partners to explore options for developing medical technology systems that support reuse, remanufacture, and materials recovery by default. This includes developing regulatory, commercial, infrastructure, and policy environments that support this aim, with the intention of publishing a roadmap later this year.

The NHS clinical waste strategy, published on 7 March 2023, sets out NHS England’s ambition to transform the management of clinical waste by eliminating unnecessary waste, finding innovative ways to reuse, and ensuring waste is processed in the most cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable way.

NHS England has developed a waste planning tool consistent with this clinical waste strategy for all National Health Service providers, which includes improved segregation, waste minimisation, and increased reuse programmes. This will lead to reductions in the road miles which waste travels, increases in the use of re-usable sharps bins, and support plans made towards the achievement of Net Zero Carbon from waste management.

As part of the Design for Life programme we recognise that in order to assess progress for reuse and waste prevention, we will need to define future data requirements and align digital infrastructure to improve the gathering of core data. As such, at this juncture, the Department does not have centralised data on the rates of disposal for reusable medical technologies, nor how many trusts have relevant waste prevention policies for these products.