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Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust appoints new head of sustainability –  Dr Clare Winter

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has announced the appointment of Dr Clare Winter who will join as the new head of sustainability.

With almost 20 years of experience in environmental sustainability, Clare has worked in a range of roles from private sector environmental consultancy to working at Northumbria Police, leading on their environmental compliance and initial sustainability journey.

She is a Chartered Environmentalist, spending over 8 years as the Environmental & Sustainability lead at North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust. During her time at the NEAS, Clare contributed a lot to their success leading on the Invest to Save programme which led to the trust achieving sustained carbon savings and winning a number of national awards.

Clare spent 15 months in the regional Greener NHS funded sustainability role in the North East & North Cumbria ICB, and to enable faster and more efficient delivery of ICS Green Plan & Net Zero projects, she worked alongside 11 provider trusts across the region.

Sharing her enthusiasm to join, Clare Winter stated: “I’m very excited to join this Trust and I’m looking forward to help achieve our goals in becoming more sustainable.

“I hope to play a key role in reducing our carbon emissions and facilitating the Trust becoming net zero on or before the NHS target of 2040.  The climate emergency is a health emergency; it undermines the core foundations of good health and will inevitably have a huge impact on our Trust and the NHS as a whole. As such it is in our interests to act now to mitigate our contribution to climate change and reduce carbon emissions from every aspect of our operations. Not only will we improve our natural environment, but also address health determinants. This could have a huge impact on improving our health long-term.”

As well as all of these achievements and successes in her career, she also mentors for The Girls’ Network and for professionals who want to progress to full membership of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA).