Vita gazette – Scotland took the first step to set an example for global warming, climate and sustainability. The National Health Agency of Scotland (NHS Scot) has banned desflurane, used for anaesthesia in surgeries and is 2,500 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

Scotland, one of the four nations of the United Kingdom, has announced that it has stopped using an anaesthetic with a high global warming potential. Desflurane, used as an anaesthetic during the surgery, has the potential to cause global warming 2,500 times more than carbon dioxide. It was stated that with this ban, an emission equivalent to the energy used by 1,700 houses annually was prevented.

According to a statement published by NHS Scotland on 3 March 2023, the gas used for general anaesthesia has a global warming potential of “2,500 times greater than carbon dioxide”. As a result, clinicians across NHS Scotland have begun moving away from desflurane to clinically appropriate alternatives, which “has already reduced harmful emissions by around 6.17 kilotonnes of carbon a year – the same as powering 1,700 homes every year”, the statement says. It adds that desflurane will be “removed from the NHS Scotland supply chain” in March 2023 and used “only in exceptional clinical circumstances”.

Stopping the purchase and use of desflurane is the first action of NHS Scotland’s National Green Theatres Programme, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of hospital theatres across the country, and forms part of the broader “NHS Scotland climate emergency and sustainability strategy”.

The strategy, published in August 2022, also includes plans to cut emissions from medical inhaler fuels by 70% in the next six years by reducing the use of metered-dose inhalers.

It was underlined that this step is the first action of the National Green Hospitals Program, stating that alternative anaesthetic agents that are less harmful to the environment, medically appropriate and safe will be used instead of Desflurane in the surgeries. Kenneth Barker, Clinical Leader of the Program, said the following about this step;

“Hospitals are carbon- and energy-intensive areas that generate high amounts of waste; therefore, reducing the environmental impact of hospitals will make a positive difference in meeting Scotland’s net zero (carbon dioxide emissions) targets.”

“Our patients always come first, but it is wonderful that we are now making clinically safe patient care decisions with sustainability in mind.”