The Sustainable Healthcare and Climate Solutions Roadshow is returning to Newcastle for its fourteenth event spanning four countries in eleven months. Here's our previous Newcastle event which gathered stellar local expertise! Link

Special thanks to our crucial sponsors:

The Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) with the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals (GGHH)
The Healthy North Coast | Primary Health Network (HNC)
and more to be confirmed soon.

Welcoming all healthcare professionals and those interested in learning more about sustainability, low waste, high value programs at our next event taking place on Wednesday 7th May 2025.

A Healthy Alliance
We are looking forward to bringing together doctors, nurses, allied health, executive teams, sustainability leads and many more from across a diverse spectrum of healthcare teams. This is the first event to partner with our colleagues in the Healthy North Coast - Primary Health Network and we are excited to build bridges across hospitals and primary care networks and look to a holistic approach of Patient-Based Medicine and Sustainable Healthcare.

Building on Success
The first Roadshow event occurred on the 25th July 2024 in the Coffs Harbour Health Campus and was a significant success. 150 attendees joined online and in-person in the first event. This pioneering collation of national and international experts set off a ripple which has turned into a wave!

Global experts
Inspired by and featuring livestream and pre-recorded presentations by international healthcare research giants, Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE, Professor Nicholas Talley, Professor Ian Scott, and Professor Nick Watts, the hybrid team have toured through Port Macquarie, Newcastle, Nepean, and a European tour to Copenhagen in October 2024, and Dublin in October and January and Auckland in March.

Pinnacle event and videos
The program elevated to new heights in January 2025 with three consecutive events in Dublin culminating in the pinnacle event, hosted by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. Tipping point was reached with over over 150 registrations and VIP attendees including the Secretary General of the Irish Department of Health along with many other highly placed governmental and non-governmental organisations.

See the inspiring short videos from the event on the IHCA Website and video channel channel.

5 Days - 7 Hospitals - 4 Events - 5 Health Districts
This latest series of events will incorporate hospitals visits, networking events in the Mid North Coast,Hunter New England, Central Coast, North and other Sydney Local Healh Districts.

Date: Wednesday 7th May 2025
Optional drop in times:
6-6.30pm Social drinks and Canapes
6.30-8.15pm Short impactful talks and Q&A with the panel
8.15-9pm Post-event optional drinks
Location: Rydges Hotel, Wharf Rd &, Merewether St, Newcastle NSW 2300

Event Overview
Our healthcare systems and societies face unprecedented challenges, but together, we can take small steps that make a huge impact. This event includes presentations, Q&A sessions and an opportunity to connect and learn with like-minded people with an interest in accelerating and scaling sustainability solutions across our systems.

We are delighted to include both healthcare professionals, and also non-healthcare individuals who are involved in sustainability and/or climate risk mitigation and are interested in supporting this initiative.

OUR PROBLEMS

Unsustainable systems
Healthcare and many other systems in place today are not sustainable if we continue in our current path. Costs, patient numbers and complexities are increasing annually, whilst staffing and facilities are being stretched beyond their capacity.

Growing climate impacts
On top of this, climate event impacts are becoming increasing burdens on health, economy and societal structures, globally and locally. We are on track for severe challenges to society and health if we do not rapidly pivot and mitigate risks through decarbonisation and other system transformations.

Our health is dependent on Maslow’s hierarchy
Irrefutable evidence shows we are facing severe global threats to the fundamentals of societal security with risks to food, water and other resources supply, financial systems, inequality, mass migration, and social conflict. Our health is completely dependent on the ecosystems we live in, and as healthcare leaders we are taking this on.

A new way of thinking
The health community now recognizes fossil fuels as significant health hazards, contributing to an estimated 5.1 million excess deaths per year globally due to air pollution. The healthcare system itself contributes over 5% of global fossil fuel emissions, exacerbating climate-related health impacts. However, we have an opportunity to reverse this trend. By decreasing emissions and improving our patient care delivery, we can make a substantial impact.

Photograph acknowledgement: Royal College of Surgeons UK

OUR SOLUTIONS

Following on from our events across New South Wales, and Europe our multi-sector team of collaborators are working with colleagues across borders to build further momentum as we bring urgency and scale to drive better, tailored more sustainable healthcare across Australasia.

Driving patient tailored care - more efficient, improved use of resources
Driving down unnecessary and wasteful care in hospitals and primary care through the reduction of the 30% of healthcare that is deemed to be low-value and 10% that is considered to be harmful. Surprisingly only 60% of healthcare is to regarded to be high value care, and by identifying what is not high value healthcare we have developed programs that target reducing non-indicated testing, medications, and management.

This streamlining approach will ultimately enhance our stretched healthcare systems and focus on what really matters, and reduce futile use of limited resources. This is better, tailored healthcare model also starts to reduce our significant greenhouse gas emissions, which are more twice that of global aviation.

Decarbonising international healthcare
This ‘getting our house in order’ approach is crucial as we drive down our 5% contribution to global emissions from healthcare. We are also leveraging our unique position of trusted and influential health leaders to meet the climate crisis head on with enhanced advocacy and engagement with policy makers, and other key persons of influence in communities, industries and governments.

Healthcare influence on global industries
Healthcare leaders and organisations can have a huge impact on the remaining 95% of global emissions by demonstrating the severe health threats from climate impacts, and the absolute need for other industries to follow healthcare and rapidly decarbonise and accelerate systems transformations to a sustainable future.

OUR TEAMS AND LEVERS

Leaders from Australian, New Zealand and UK healthcare and other relevant systems will be sharing insights and experiences, case studies and success stories. We are continuing a successful and enjoyable theme with high audience participation and showcasing engaging topics highlighted below.

Key themes include:

Critical mass and social proof
How will we engage our communities, clinicians and executive colleagues in the transition to Sustainable Healthcare? A dual approach harnessing top-down and grassroots engagement and leverage is vital to success.

Strategic coordination is crucial also and we will discuss how we are driving these key components to find win/wins for all stakeholders which is a key to success.

Value-based care
Reducing low-value care, and promoting high-value care are new concepts that have started to permeate healthcare circles, but what do they mean, and how do we implement these concepts?

We will share successful examples, and practical strategies to bring more efficient, less wasteful programs to life in your workplace.

Reducing UNNECESSARY TESTING, DE-PRESCRIBING polypharmacy, and promoting more NATURE and SOCIAL-BASED approaches are key examples to how we are sparking behavioural change which catalyses the mindset change essential for widespread clinical transformation.

Low carbon care is high value care. It is often better, more appropriate and more cost effective healthcare which focuses on the patient as an individual and cleaves the 30-40% of low value and harmful care we currently provide.

Building capacity
Effective strategies and concepts are futile if they are not resourced to do so. Capacity building is through our people, and we will discuss the three pathways to engage our teams in a sustainable and long term approach.

i) UNPAID ROLES
Volunteer champions are important but quickly burn out and require support from a funded organisational structure.
ii) ADDING TO CURRENT ROLES
Integrating sustainability roles and responsibilities into current jobs and workplans is good in theory but is challenging in practice as our clinical teams are already at maximum capacity.
iii) DEDICATED FUNDED ROLES
A key strategy for success is to fund specific Sustainable Healthcare roles within hospitals and primary care systems. By demonstrating real cost savings, business cases can be utilised to create new, innovative clinician-led roles which focus on decreasing low-value care and simultaneously delivering enhanced patient care, lower healthcare costs, and decreased waste and carbon footprint.

Moving the money
As Archimedes identified, if we can identify the right lever, we can move the world. There is no more powerful lever than money to drive solutions across systems.

Whilst our focus is primarily on patient care, improving efficiencies and healthcare decarbonisation, this will not be sufficient to prevent health and climate catastrophe. We need to be aware of the whole ecosystem to find real global solutions, and finance is a vital component to success.

Shifting finance is crucial in two aspects:

Funding new sustainability roles
Harnessing healthcare cost savings to fund new Sustainable Healthcare positions which will build an integrated and impactful network across our health systems.
De-funding fossil fuels industries
We are working towards unleashing the potential of global healthcare organisations and workforce to ‘move its money’ away from the health hazards that fossil fuels are accepted to be.

Air pollution from fossil fuel use accounts for over 5 million extra deaths a year as reported in the British Medical Journal in 2023.

In 2021, global healthcare spending was 10.3% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), or $9.8 trillion. Shifting the healthcare economy off fossil fuels can lead to the global economic tipping point needed to finally phase out coal, gas and oil, through a sustainable, planned and equitable approach.

Why Attend?

Our healthcare systems face unsustainable challenges due to funding limitations, increasing and ageing populations and escalating risks from climate related impacts. 30% of healthcare practices are considered low value, providing little or no benefit to patients. By collaborating, we can deliver better, tailored care, reduce waste, and optimise health funding.

GUEST SPEAKERS AND PANELLISTS INCLUDE:

Prof Hugh Montgomery OBE
Professor Intensive Care, University College London,
Co-chair, The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
Geneticist, Author, Co-Founder Real Zero. London, UK
Dr John Bonning
Senior Emergency Physician, Past President Australasian College for Emergency Medicine
Advocate for Choosing Wisely, Climate Risk Mitigation, Clinician Wellbeing, and Resilient Health Systems.
Wikato, New Zealand
Dr Brian O’Connell
Senior Emergency Physician, General Practitioner, Climate Risk & Sustainable Healthcare Clinical Lead, Australia.
Medical Lead, Net Zero Hub for NSW Emergency Departments, NSW Ministry of Health
Board Director, Climate and Health Alliance Australia, UNSW Conj Lecturer,
Deputy Chair, Sustainable Emergency Medicine and Climate Advocacy Network, ACEM
Coffs Harbour, NSW
Dr Debbie Wilson
Sustainable Healthcare Leader | Doctor of Health Sciences
Former Intensive Care and Mental Health Registered Nurse
Auckland, New Zealand
Other Panellists to be Announced!

Opportunities:

NSW Health Pathology Stewardship
- NSW Health Pathology is taking sustainability seriously. A new Taskforce was set up in 2024 and is having real impact.
- Coordinated programs are starting to spread through Local Health Districts in a pilot and structured approach.
  The Mid North Coast and Central Coast LHDs have been leading thanks to their strong Executive support and local proactive approach.
  North Sydney LHD have also been included in the first phase, pending resources and other LHDs will follow as soon as possible.
- Pathology Stewardship is designed to strengthen partnerships with clinical referrers to improve pathology ordering practices,
  reduce low value tests and optimise patient care and experience through evidence-based testing pathways, data informed decisions
  and education and training support.
- Check out some of the Health Pathology Stewardship initiatives here.

Primary Care Resources:
- Environmentally Sustainable Primary Care - Helping you get your practice to net-zero
- Primary Care Sustainability Network
- Sustainable general practice
- Greening Family Medicine clinic operations and clinical care, where do we start? A scoping review of toolkits and aids
Moving healthcare facilities towards plant-based menus
- More Plant-Based Food; Seasonal & Local – Why?
Reducing Low Value Care
- Centre for Sustainable Healthcare
- Unnecessary pathology testing - see above.
- De-prescribing Unnecessary Medications
- The Gloves are Off!
Energy stewardship
- CT switch for savings
- Lights off / Computers off initiatives

The 7Acts
- What are they? And how can the 7Acts catalyse a tipping point towards global climate solutions
How Moving our Money can help solve the Climate Crisis
- Make My Money Matter
- MarketForces

All feedback welcome. Please add to registration form or as required.
Please add dietary requests.

Roadshow Timeline:

Mon 5th May
- Coffs Harbour Event - From 6pm-8.30pm

Tue 6th
- Coffs Harbour Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- Port Macquarie Networking Event - From 6pm-8.30pm

Wed 7th
- Port Macquarie Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- Newcastle Networking Event - From 6pm-8.30pm

Thu 8th
- John Hunter Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- Wyong Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- Gosford Emergency Department and Hospital Visits

Fri 9th
- RNSH Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- *Surprise* Sydney Emergency Department and Hospital Visits
- Central Sydney Networking Event - From 6pm-8.30pm