Surgical instruments manufacturer launches new green initiative

Surgical instrument manufacturer Surgical Holdings has launched a new company-wide green initiative to reduce both its and the NHS’s carbon footprint.

This initiative includes launching a new Ethical Duty Smart Repair service, which actively promotes the repair and refurbishment of surgical instruments and other medical devices to tackle global steel wastage.

Customers can now access an online customer dashboard, Surgifix, which allows the whole repair process to be arranged and processed remotely. Its aim is to support positive efforts to better global sustainability within the surgical industry.

Currently, most surgical instruments – made of surgical grade stainless steel, end up in landfill and remain there. It is recognised that it requires 50% less energy to refurbish a surgical instrument than to replace it.

To reduce its internal carbon footprint as much as possible, all Surgical Holdings repairs are carried out in-house and technicians are trained through an internal apprenticeship programme to manufacture instruments rather than simply repair them.

Surgical Holdings also has ISO14001 certification to better support efforts to eliminate its environmental impacts.

It has also introduced a corporate membership of Ecologi, a charity dedicated to funding global environmental projects. As a member of Ecologi, Surgical Holdings have so far funded 1,315 trees, predominantly to support mangrove restoration efforts in Madagascar, an island currently undergoing a huge planting project following damning deforestation and loss of entire animal species, as well as supporting reforestation projects in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and the UK. The company has additionally cut its carbon emissions by 92.73 tonnes.

Dan Coole, managing director of Surgical Holdings, said: “We are very happy to announce that we have taken a number of positive actions towards giving back to our planet, committing to a green Company Initiative launching this month in support of our theme of Sustainability. Surgical Holdings has proudly become a Corporate Member of Ecologi, alongside the big shot players such as BBC, Tech Crunch, Forbes, and The Guardian, and 11,278 other businesses worldwide. 

“Alongside Ecologi, an exciting channel of working green, we look forwarded to continue taking active steps to reduce our carbon footprint through the launch of our unique new repair and refurbishment service to tackle the challenge of unnecessary steel wastage, which remains a huge problem in healthcare.”

The company’s newly launched ‘ethical duty’ refurbishment service allows every single instrument on every single tray to be entirely refurbished to an ‘as new’ condition, instead of replaced. 

Coole added: “Rather than incurring spikes in cost as instruments reach the end of their life, customers can access a complete preventative refurbishment service at a fraction of the price of manufacturing new instrumentation through our new refurbishment service. Through our unique Surgifix dashboard, an online surgical instrument repair portal exclusive to Surgical Holdings, the whole repair process can also be arranged and managed remotely, with customers able to track the status of their instruments in real-time.”