NICE
Public dialogue
on environmental
sustainability
Challenge
On 1st July 2022, the NHS became the first health system to embed net zero into legislation. The scale of the challenge is enormous. Healthcare contributes a whopping 5% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the transition to net zero will require action across all parts of the supply chain and healthcare delivery. As an organisation responsible for providing evidence-based advice to the NHS on new treatments and practices, NICE has an important role to play in reaching net-zero. They asked us to listen to the public on what, exactly, that role should look like.
Approach
NICE Listens is NICE’s programme of deliberate public engagement. Working with the NICE Listens team, we designed and delivered an online public dialogue involving 23 members of the public, to explore public opinion on NICE’s role in making healthcare more environmentally sustainable. The dialogue ran from October-November 2022, during which time participants deliberated about the issues in three online workshops, an online community, and even while playing a specially designed board game - ‘The Game of NICE’.
Impact
The findings from this project have been used by NICE to develop a series of recommendations on how they can best support the NHS net zero target and environmentally sustainable healthcare. These recommendations are published on the NICE Listens webpage, together with the full research report from the public dialogue. These recommendations will guide the ways in which NICE works to help make healthcare more sustainable in the future.
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