An award-winning Ealing GP is trying to help all practices learn about how they can become more environmentally conscious. 

Dr Vasu Siva, who is a partner at Hillview Surgery in Perivale, and has been showing surgeries how they can become 'greener' and also tell patients how they can minimise their carbon footprint. 

Through her work, Dr Siva has been named a 'climate leader' by Ealing Council and Hillview Surgery was the first in London to receive the Gold Plus Certificate by enrolling the Green Impact for Health Toolkit created by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and run by the National Union of Students in 2021 and then in 2022 it was awarded the Inaugural PROactive Practice Award, accredited by the RCGP. 

Dr Siva said: "When we talk about health care, we need to talk about it through a sustainable lens. Addressing climate change isn't an additional job, it is an everyday part of primary care – it is part of the same thing.  

"It is about making small cultural or behavioural changes in people's everyday lives that are good for their health, and for others'. 

"For example, if someone has asthma, we discuss how we can help to prevent it being exacerbated. We increase awareness of things such as air pollution inside the car being worse than if you walked on the pavement alongside.  

"So, by walking to school with your child you would help to prevent their asthma symptoms as well as causing less pollution yourself – but you are also increasing both of your physical activity levels, increasing the amount of meaningful time you spend with your child, helping to improve their concentration for school and it is just generally better for your all-round health.  

"At the same time, we explain how you can recycle and return your asthma inhalers. So, just in that one little example, we have active travel, less air pollution and also reuse or recycling." 

advertisement

As part of her work, Dr Siva has produced a list of ten things that all people can try at home to be more climate conscious. 

The list covers lots of different aspects of life, covering things like diet, travel, and health care.