Our project aim was to increase awareness of the impact of inhalers on the environment via education, communication and developing resources and to change the NHSGGC inhaler device guides and NHSGGC respiratory formulary to incorporate inhalers with lower global warming potential. We now have a lower carbon option at each management step of the asthma and COPD inhaler device guides and this option is not first line. The Inhaler device guides now have a traffic light key which classifies each inhaler as low, medium or high carbon footprint.
We have highlighted the environmental impact of inhalers to many multidisciplinary teams via presentations, training sessions , medicines update bulletins and resources that we have developed e.g GP toolkit.
This increased awareness has resulted in Respiratory being a key area of focus for the NHSGGC prescribing teams for 2022/2023 with a particular focus on sustainable respiratory prescribing. NHS Scotland is in the process of producing a Quality Respiratory Prescribing Guide and currently there is no national guidance/targets on this area but we felt this was such an important topic that we have decided to focus on this topic.
