Agenda item

Deputy Director Estates & Facilities, Barts Health NHS Trust to be heard.

The Committee welcomed two Public Health Directors from Barts NHS Trust to the Committee, following Members’ discussion on air pollution at St Bartholomew’s Hospital at the last meeting.  The Directors briefly explained the workings of the combustion plant in the energy centre. Members noted that they were working with Skansa, and holding monthly review meetings, to keep emissions of pollutants at an appropriate level.  Members also noted that Bartshad met with City Corporation officers in August and, whilst there had been some drop in emission levels during the summer, they had recently picked up a little. 

During the discussion, the following points were noted:

1.    Members expressed concern that the works had been ongoing for some time. before the matter had come to the attention of the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee. Furthermore, the area surrounding Barts is already densely populated.   Members accepted that all of the London hospitals are in areas of high pollution generally and noted that the Trust provided information for vulnerable patient groups in respect of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.  However, the Trust also had a responsibility to promote walking, as a healthy lifestyle choice. There was some discussion on the various apps available, which identified higher pollution areas, particularly ‘CityAir’.

2.    Ideally, Barts would like a higher stack to the plant but were limited by St Paul’s heights.  Engineers were considering work to the flue, in order to increase exit velocity and increase dispersal. Engineers had considered alternative control systems but there were no compatible versions available and the system in use was the lowest emitting of its kind.  Further options included stand-by generators, which ran on diesel oil but were used less frequently, and the new types of bio-fuel available for these.  The site will be replacing all communal lighting with LED bulbs. 

3.    The Royal London and Whipps Cross have ‘Clean Air Hospital Plans’ which are being rolled out across all 5 London hospitals and Whitechapel Hospital has an anti-idling transport policy.  The Trust has an in-house transport fleet and were commissioning cleaner vehicles wherever possible.  Active travel for health workers and doctors is encouraged and new secure cycling storage bays had been purchased. 

4.    The City Corporation’s Air Quality Manager had offered to install lamp post monitoring at Barts next week, which would provide continuous monitoring and not just monthly averages.  Members noted that lamp post monitoring was in place at the other 5 London hospitals. 

In concluding, the Public Health Directors at Barts assured Members that they took the issue of air pollution very seriously and would continue to work with the Committee to keep levels as low as possible. Whilst acknowledging their actions and the circumstances set out above, Members felt that levels were still higher than desirable.