Nursing student taking the lead on greener healthcare

A University of Brighton student nurse features in a Nursing Times in-depth look at how students and early-career nurses are taking the lead on sustainability issues in the healthcare sector.

Emma Hansford, a final-year Nursing (Adult) BSC(Hons) student, realised that student nurses were being asked to wear single-use items when doing simulated training involving mannequins, despite there being “no contamination risk”.

She also found that, in practice, many healthcare staff were donning plastic gloves and an apron, just to check the blood pressure and temperature of an otherwise healthy patient.

Emma created a training video on unnecessary glove usage, which has now been embedded into the induction programme for all student nurses at the university.

The Nursing Times reports that, as a result of her raising awareness of glove wastage, the university now no longer makes students wear plastic gloves or aprons when they are doing simulated training.

Emma said she hoped there would be an opportunity to bring the green agenda into her new workplace when she qualifies.

Read the article on the Nursing Times website.