Auditor says some clinical waste can be classifed as household to reduce costs

The handling of clinical waste from Scottish hospitals by NHS trusts meets high environmental and safety standards, according to the report published this week by the Auditor General, Robert Black. The report also reveals a wide variation in the costs of waste management.

The report, “Waste management in Scottish Hospitals”, recommends that health trusts carry out should carry out pilot studies to establish if certain types of waste currently classified as clinical waste could be treated safely as domestic waste. The report estimates that improved segregation could potentially save 2 million.

Findings of the report include that the disposal of hospital waste costs about 8 million a year and clinical waste costs
about 300 per tonne more to dispose of than domestic waste.

It states: “There is however variation in the cost of disposing of both clinical and domestic waste and therefore the difference in cost between clinical and domestic waste varies amongst trusts. Clinical waste accounts for about 75% of total waste disposal costs. Achieving significant savings in the costs of waste management will require a reduction in the costs associated with clinical waste.”

Two areas to reduce costs are suggested a reducing the unit cost of disposal and by reducing the volume of clinical waste produced.

The Auditor says that the unit cost depends on the contract price that has been negotiated with the contractor. “Glasgow trusts have jointly negotiated a contract which runs until 2005, and a consortium comprising most of the other trusts has recently negotiated a ten year contract which is expected to reduce clinical waste disposal costs.”

So, given the long term nature of these contracts the study looked at the
second aspect of cost ie, the amount of waste classified as clinical waste and suggested two possible ways in which the amount of clinical waste might be reduced:

– segregation of domestic waste from clinical waste

– reclassification of some clinical waste as domestic waste.

The full text of the report is available as a PDF file at: Scottish clinical waste report.