Improving Sustainability Drives Savings at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

NHS Supply Chain: Food is leading the way in generating savings for trusts through innovative initiatives. For this project we changed something as simple as hot drinks at a trust site, highlighting how small adjustments can yield significant results.

At Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust a new consumable saving methodology has been implemented from NHS Supply Chain: Food. This method looks at ward beverage trollies and changing hot drinks from a cardboard in-cup format to loose ingredients, using reusable mugs.

This could be the driver behind potential savings for your trust, and we would be delighted to work on this with you looking at your patient tea, coffee and hot chocolate consumption.

See our Useful Links section to view individual Food Contacts.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is one of the most sizeable acute, community and primary care service providers in the West Midlands, operating over 850 beds at their New Cross site. They have three sites delivering services closer to home for children and adults. Their services cover the population of Wolverhampton, the wider Black Country and South Staffordshire. They specialise in a number of services, including: cancer, stroke, heart and lung, as well as providing much more to the wide community they serve.

The trust has a large in-house Central Food Production Unit (CPU), where they prepare and cook a very large volume of patient meals, serving a number of hospital sites within the trust. They are also the largest employer in Wolverhampton, with their workforce consists of in excess of 11,000 staff, who cover a range of clinical and non-clinical roles.  

Recently, Category Buyer Charlotte Farrell and Food Client Account Manager Darren Sorrell collaborated with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s team and the awarded supplier on a substantial savings project. To reduce environmental impact and cut costs, the team at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust transitioned from single-use pre-packaged in-cup hot beverages to using loose ingredients for their patient drinks on their ward beverage trollies.

The trust stood to make some significant savings on both cost and carbon reduction, thereby helping with their Green Plan, focusing on carbon reduction. The awarded supplier predicted that the switch from in-cup to loose ingredients would cut the trusts carbon emissions by 59% over a 5 year period. Switching to the in-house loose coffee brand for example, would remove over 1 tonne of packaging waste annually, and £600 in waste treatment costs.

By implementing this change, the trust are now also looking at a cost reduction of £120,000 per year, based on ingredients alone.

Charlotte Farrell, Category Buyer, NHS Supply Chain: Food

This simple yet strategic shift has significantly reduced packaging waste and the use of disposable materials, directly supporting the trust’s Green Plan and NHS England’s Net Zero ambitions. It has also streamlined operations by cutting down on delivery frequency and freeing up valuable onsite storage space, delivering both environmental and logistical wins.

One of the key objectives for trusts across England is to explore opportunities for collaboration with service partners to reduce emissions. By adopting this straightforward change, Royal Wolverhampton is making significant strides in this direction.

This project consisted of a full review of the trusts current ward beverage trolley contract. From industry assessments we quickly learned in-cup trolleys were no longer fit for purpose at the trust. We were able to reduce Royal Wolverhampton’s carbon footprint by introducing loose ingredient trolleys, and in turn aligning with the trust’s Green Plan. We were also able to source free on-loan trolleys which created healthy savings, alongside creating savings on ingredients.

Darren Sorrell, Food Client Account Manager, NHS Supply Chain: Food

The trust is very focused on monetising the value of the green wins – handling fewer deliveries, less packaging waste and addressing their carbon footprint per cup. The trust will also continue to benefit from ongoing savings in both monetary value and waste saving, as this project continues.

Charlotte Farrell, Category Buyer, NHS Supply Chain: Food

The team are now looking forward to the second phase of the project, with additional trolleys at another site within the trust, making the same changes, due to the success of the first implementation.

If you are a trust looking to reduce costs, cut waste and boost sustainability, this is your opportunity. NHS Supply Chain: Food are here to help you replicate this success and tailor it to your needs.

We estimate using this savings methodology, you could save an average of £0.07 saving per cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Get in touch today to start your own transformation journey.

Please contact us with your name, trust name, email address and contact number, and your Food Account Manager will get in touch.