Heartbeat: Pharmacy team get green
May 16, 2022
Our pharmacy team have been enjoying the outdoors since the start of the year as part of our Green Impact programme. Green Impact is our colleague environmental engagement programme aimed at staff taking small sustainability actions that collectively make a big impact.
The Sandwell and City based pharmacy teams started getting outside and enjoying greener spaces as part of Green Impact.
“Some of the actions in the Green Impact toolkit suggested we make an effort to enjoy the outdoors more so that is what collectively as a team we decided to do,” said Amy Challinor, Lead Pharmacy Technician – Quality Assurance.
“With this in mind, at the start of 2022, following on from our Green Impact meeting we made a little departmental competition out of it to encourage us all to get moving.
“Our wellbeing team came up with the idea to go for walks on lunchtimes, so to help support this, members of the Green Impact team found safe routes from each site that could be walked in an hour or less.”
Positive mental health and wellbeing is paramount to all especially during the pandemic which is why the pharmacy team decided to embrace this particular part of the toolkit within Green Impact.
The team, made up of 12 colleagues including Emily Maye, Jon Darbyshire, Emma Graham Clarke, Kate Sambrook, Connor Welch, Dannielle Stanley, Leanne Betham, Shanelle Savarimuthu, Nav Gill, Stephanie Parkes, Mike Harrison and Amy herself have visited an array of outdoor and scenic locations including Lickey Hiils, Sutton Park, Kelston Round Hill, Sandwell Valley, Saltwells Woods, Clent hills and even Breacon Beacons!
Amy believes there have been many benefits to enjoying greener spaces across the region.
She said: “As our jobs are inside a lot of the time, we are limited to the amount of daylight we see especially in the winter months so knew it was imperative that we get outside.
“Having spoken to the team, many of them have said just being outside has improved their mental health and general mood.”
To encourage everyone to maintain going outdoors on a regular basis the pharmacy team also implemented a greenest selfie competition as well as a competition for the most steps with Kate Sambrook, Pre-registration Pharmacy Technician completing a massive 371,470 steps for the month individually and the team amassing a total of 3,425,398 steps collectively for the month.
If you would like to find out more about Green Impact and how you and your team can become more sustainable, please email Francesca.silcocks@nhs.net.