Rugby legend touches down to health honour

Jul 31 2008 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

ST John’s Hospital has been presented with a top health award.

Former Scotland rugby star Gregor Townsend visited Livingston on Monday to present the hospital with the Healthy Working Lives Gold Award.

The accolade is in recognition of the work done to make the hospital a healthier workplace and St John's is the first hospital in Scotland to receive the award.

Offering smoking cessation sessions, making fresh fruit widely available and offering health and lifestyle checks to staff are among the initiatives which helped St John's to win the award.

The hospital offers a wide range of healthy food choices and NHS Lothian became the first health board in Scotland to receive a Healthy Living Award in 2006, in recognition of the food served at St John's.

Staff are also encouraged to make informed lifestyle choices through the promotion of health improvement programmes.

A number of projects have been introduced to help reduce the hospital's carbon footprint, including becoming the first hospital in the country to use rainwater to run the laundry system.

An innovative rain water harvesting system has been installed, which allows rain that lands on the 19,000 square metre roof to be used in the hospital laundry.

The rain water harvesting system allows St John's Hospital to drain the water which lands on the roof into storage tanks and filter it for use in the hospital laundry.

Dr Charles Winstanley, chairman NHS Lothian, said he was delighted the hospital has won the accolade.

He said: “It is fantastic that the hard work being done at St John's Hospital has been recognised by the Healthy Working Lives Gold Award.

“Staff have worked together to make the hospital more environmentally friendly and it has become a beacon of good practice for the rest of NHS Lothian.

“Harvesting rainwater to use in our laundry system is just one of a number of eco-friendly initiatives we have introduced at St John's Hospital.

“High-efficiency boilers, automatic heating and ventilation controls, and automatic or high efficiency lighting, have also been installed to help improve our energy efficiency.”

Efforts to make workplaces more environmentally friendly are a key aspect of the Gold Award, as well as health promotion, health and safety, community involvement and mental health and well-being.

Steve Bell, strategic director for the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives, added: “The Healthy Working Lives Gold Award recognises employers who have embraced a range of different measures to make their site a healthy place for staff to work and St John’s Hospital is a fantastic example of what can be achieved.

“Initiatives including smoking cessation classes, visits from nutritionists and subsidised complementary therapies such as reflexology have all contributed to the hospital receiving the Gold Award and I hope other employers in the area will see St John’s as an example of what can be achieved.”