In addition to the sustainability projects detailed in our Green Plan, we encourage all staff to be sustainability champions and develop their own departmental, team or individual sustainability pledges and innovations. 

E-consent forms save thousands of kilos in carbon emissions

Richmond’s community immunisations team and Kingston Hospital’s unplanned care programmes team are helping to save kilos of carbon emissions across the Trust by adopting the use of e-consent forms.

Richmond’s immunisations team, now called South London Children and Young People’s Community Immunisations Service, adopted the e-consent system Riviam in September 2021. Over the past three years the service has facilitated close to a 100% uptake of the use of e-consents across nine South London boroughs, adding an additional three London boroughs in September 2024.

According to research, saving one sheet of A4 paper saves the planet 4.5g of carbon dioxide. Given a standard immunisation paper consent form is made up of two A4 pages, by adopting the e-consent system, excluding the three recent additional boroughs, community staff have saved the Trust 6,422 kilos in carbon emissions or the weight of an adult African Savannah elephant.

Senior Programme Manager, Raffaele Sorvillo, and the team in the unplanned care division at Kingston Hospital have also been promoting the use of e-consent forms across the hospital. Since April 2023 they have facilitated the signing of 35,604 e-consent forms, with endoscopy, urology, and gynaecology departments leading the way.

At the hospital, a standard paper consent form is made up of four A4 pages, so by adopting the e-consent form, hospital staff have saved 615 kilos of carbon dioxide or the weight of a European Bison, and this figure doesn't include the accompanying patient leaflets which are now being incorporated into the digital consent forms.