{"id":2416,"date":"2026-06-17T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2026-09-05T06:57:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T06:57:30","slug":"from-awareness-to-action-piloting-sustainable-palliative-care-at-a-welsh-hospice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/2026\/06\/17\/from-awareness-to-action-piloting-sustainable-palliative-care-at-a-welsh-hospice\/","title":{"rendered":"From awareness to action: piloting sustainable palliative care at a Welsh hospice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Daniel Hattam – Junior clinical fellow at Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff and the Vale\u00a0<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Tiffany D\u2019Silva – Junior clinical fellow at Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff and the Vale\u00a0<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Siwan Seaman – Consultant in Palliative medicine and medical director at Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff and the Vale\u00a0<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Kate Crossland – Speciality Doctor in Palliative medicine (Guys\u2019 and St Thomas\u2019 trust) and co-lead of the Palliative Care Sustainability Network<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Under the NHS Net Zero goals (which aims to have net zero direct and indirect emissions by 2045), we as healthcare professionals and organisations are increasingly being asked to confront our work-based environmental impact [1]. In a specialty focused on compassion, dignity and holistic care, we believe this is intrinsically part of our responsibility, both to our current, but also our future patients, to ensure we are taking care of our planet. This is ever more urgent with climate change being increasingly linked with adverse health outcomes both on morbidity and mortality [2].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff and The Vale, we had the opportunity to explore how we could raise awareness and drive organisational change to become more environmentally friendly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo 1:<\/i><\/b> The lovely view from the Marie Curie Hospice in Penarth\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Photo 2: <\/i><\/b>Some of our Green Group members who worked towards the Bronze Award. From the left: Dr Tiffany D\u2019Silva, Dr Siwan Seaman (medical director at the hospice) and Dr Daniel Hattam. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Why sustainability in Palliative Care?<\/b><\/p>\n

Palliative Care is uniquely placed on the matter of sustainability. As with any medical specialty we rely on energy-intensive buildings, single-use plastics, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. However, our ethos is inherently values-driven: proportionality, reflection, and avoiding interventions that do not confer benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sustainability, as we came to realise, aligns naturally with these principles\u2014especially when organisations are given a clear and realistic framework to engage with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The PallCareSusNet Greener Palliative Care Awards<\/b><\/p>\n

In 2025, Marie Curie Hospice, Cardiff and The Vale was accepted as one of ten UK pilot sites (and the only site in Wales) to undertake the Palliative Care Sustainability Network (PallCare SusNet) Greener Palliative Care Awards [3]. PallCare Susnet is a collaborative group of healthcare professionals who are passionate about developing and inspiring sustainable practice across both NHS and hospice sites in the UK.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bronze Award deliberately centres on increasing awareness at an organisational level with the silver and gold awards moving further to embedding organisational change and specific target-set improvements across multiple domains.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The call to action – founding our \u201cGreen Group\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Our first step in tackling the Bronze Award was to form a multidisciplinary sustainability task force, dubbed the \u2018Green Group\u2019. It was very encouraging to see how many people within our organisation across the MDT were keen to engage and already thinking of ideas to improve our practice prior to our acceptance onto the award.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Our group included colleagues from:<\/span><\/p>\n