7 engage your patients
This is a collective threat, and so needs a collective endeavour! Taking action on climate and nature is an opportunity to talk to patients about all the things we can do, all the ways we can improve our own health at the same time as improving planetary health, and crucially, what the practice is doing to pull its own weight. And patients tend to want to hear - and many of them (and we're one of them, too) have particular areas that are important to them, which can be a great way to start a conversation.
Start the dot joining in the team
Chances are some of your patients have already started. Make sure your staff team meetings talk about what you're doing, as a standing agenda item - and chat about how you can connect with patients on this, in clinical and non clinical settings.
When you're doing thing fab - say so!
We developed a wee poster with a local community artist to make sure practices could start saying it out loud. That's the first step to engaging others in your actions!
Ask your PPG, and community groups, to work with you
PPGs are a crucial connection between community and clinicians. They meet with you regularly - and in Cornwall are now involved in community gardening groups, EV charging station installation, reusable sanitary product initiatives and habitat creation ... stretch out your hand and see how they want to work with you. It's an overwhelmingly positive collaboration.
