About the climate change team
Climate change has rightly become an increasingly important feature in our everyday lives. We are all affected by it and, health and social care contribute significantly towards causing it.
We aspire to be a leader in the delivery of environmentally sustainable health and social care through increased investment, mitigation and culture change throughout our system. Big Ambition number 9 of the Partnership is, “We aspire to be a leader in the delivery of environmentally sustainable health and social care through increased investment, mitigation and culture change throughout our system.”
The team works to raise awareness of our contribution to climate change and ways in which we need to change in order to deal with the effects. We focus on building capacity through networking and education as well as providing expertise.
The drivers of climate change are also the drivers of ill health and health inequalities - we cannot be healthy if our biosphere is poisoned. Together, we need to prepare for the changes that are already taking place and that will intensify in the future. Climate affects all the determinants of health and wellbeing in our communities.
To reduce our environmental impact, everyone working and volunteering in health and social care in West Yorkshire needs to act. By bringing networks of professionals together across the partnership, we enable sharing of information, best practice, problem solving and resources. This is working well in many professions such as pharmacy, primary care and with sustainability leads across the health and care sector. We also play a role in creating strategy for the partnership as well as potential actions for organisations to deliver.
You can also find more resources, details about our involvement activities, examples of our work and case studies covering climate change on our our Improving Population Health Programme pages including:
Climate change news
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11th December 2024
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership has opened applications for the 2025 Improving Population Health Fellowship.
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1st October 2024
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21st May 2024
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15th January 2024
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23rd November 2023
Meet the team
Frank Swinton
Frank works as the climate change lead for the Partnership two days a week. The rest of the time he is a Consultant Anaesthetist at Airedale Hospital. Frank has an MSc in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability and volunteers as a Trustee for Sustrans.
Email: Frank.swinton@nhs.net
Hawarun Hussain
Senior Net Zero Programme Manager, Hawarun, led on developing the Partnership's Green Plan. She's now working closely with colleagues across the system to implement the activities in that plan.
Hawarun supports the development of the Primary Care Climate Change Toolkit and is heavily involved in all thing's sustainability and net zero. In her spare time, she Chairs The Bradford Lord Mayors Charity and enjoys running.
Email: hawarun.hussain@nhs.net
Maria White
Maria is the Project Manager for Climate Change and Housing working alongside Frank Swinton, Climate Change Lead and Sarah Roxby, Service Director at WDH. With a local authority background as a Public Health Intelligence Analyst, Maria is studying for a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health. Maria also has a background in town planning which is where her interest in creating healthy places developed.