17th October 2024
Foreword by Richard Smith
Primary care practitioners are well positioned to be leaders in countering climate change and the destruction of nature, the major threats to global health. We need radical change at every level: global, national, regional, within health systems and our organisations, and professionally and personally.
Primary care practitioners, who are the most trusted group and who are everywhere, can act at every level, and this inspiring, comprehensive, clearly written, and practical book will be an essential guide for that action.
Health professionals are internationally connected in a way that many professions are not. WONCA, the World Organisation of Family Doctors, has members in 111 countries representing half a million family doctors who provide care for 90% of the world’s population.
The global influence of health professionals is well illustrated by the work of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which won the Nobel Peace Prize for reducing the risk of nuclear destruction during the Cold War.
National political action is essential, and primary care practitioners have called on the UK government to prioritise action on climate change and the destruction of nature through bodies like the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association, and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. Other groups of primary health practitioners and other countries have their own bodies calling for action.
Primary care practitioners should never underestimate their influence within their regions, cities, and local communities. They can join community groups working on renewable energy, healthier transport, improvements in the supply of healthy and environmentally friendly (mostly plant-based) food and carbon literacy.
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change has 11 actions that it asks its members, including the Royal College of General Practitioners, to commit to. These include measuring the organisation’s carbon footprint, developing and publishing a plan to reach net-zero, and reviewing travel and food policies to reduce emissions and waste.
Primary care professionals have been leading the way in reducing the emissions and waste from their practices, and Greener Practice is a community of healthcare professionals working together to inspire sustainable primary care, many of whom are involved in this book.
It is perhaps in their contact with individuals that primary care professionals have the most scope to lead in countering the climate and nature crisis through their millions of interactions with patients every day. They are naturally reluctant to discuss the climate and nature crisis with every patient, but because what is good for the planet and the individual go together, there is lots of room, even an obligation, to do so.
It makes sense to discuss physical activity and diet with the many patients with cardiovascular disease, air pollution and climate-friendlier inhalers with patients with asthma, and visiting green spaces with patients with depression. It’s a small step to point out that what will benefit the patient will also benefit the planet.
This book discusses how primary healthcare professionals can take what may feel like a radical step and raise these issues in consultations.
As with everybody, primary care professionals can also change personally – driving and flying less, walking and cycling more, adopting a largely plant-based diet, using a renewable energy supplier, consuming less, changing banks to ones that don’t fund fossil fuel companies, and much more.
We know that action begets action, and taking what may be a small action as an individual is likely to lead to bigger actions collectively.
Famously, doctors played a big part in reducing smoking levels when evidence emerged in the 1960s of the extremely harmful effects of tobacco. In a very short period of time, the smoking prevalence among UK doctors dropped from about three-quarters to one-quarter.
Doctors led the way, and patients followed. The same can happen with primary care professionals taking personal actions to improve their health and reduce harm to the planet.