Case studies - Healthcare - NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is the largest health board in the UK. With over 45,000 employed at various healthcare and service facilities, they face transport-related challenges on a daily basis.

Car-sharing is central to the reduction of single car occupancy within the organisation.

Many of their acute hospital sites now operate on a managed car parking system, meaning that there is an increased requirement to provide real alternatives for staff. And having such a large and diverse workforce means that they often have staff based in rural locations, not well-served by public transport. For these people, car-sharing offers a realistic alternative to single car occupancy.

Communication of the scheme has been extensive, with regular road-shows, promotional schemes, information-based articles in staff magazines and on the intranet.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has also entered into a Carbon Management programme with the assistance of the Carbon Trust. Transport makes up over a quarter of all harmful emissions made by NHS GGC, and challenging yet realistic targets have been set to reduce these. Car-sharing plays a core part of this plan and has dual priority status within both the Green Travel Plans and the Carbon Management Programme.

Winning the Health Facilities Scotland Energy and Environment Award 2008 was recognition of the success of the Travel Plans for their acute hospital sites.

Dougie McIntosh, Travel Plan and Systems Manager for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said:

“I am delighted to be able to offer our staff a safe, reliable, easy-to-use system that brings benefits for the environment and the organisation, reducing single car occupancy and harmful emissions.

The scheme has been very well received by our staff and word is now spreading that this is a realistic alternative to driving to work on your own. It provides opportunities to share your journey to and from work, between work sites and even socially - and because we have only our staff using the scheme, everyone has something to talk about!”

Clients
“We were impressed with the offer from liftshare to set up the system and it seemed like a cost effective way of encouraging the public (and our own staff) to think about car-sharing as a way of tackling growing congestion problems.”
Kathy Saunders - Team Leader Travelwise, Borough of Poole Council