Health centres in Hull, funded and operated through the NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme, are becoming some of the most sustainable in the country, thanks in part to an ambitious programme of lighting replacements.
Healthcare estates management company Hull Citycare has been working with Sewell Facilities Management across their 13 health centres in the city to replace almost 7,000 light fittings with low-energy LEDs, dramatically reducing energy usage and costs, and lessening their carbon footprint.
Health centres such as Bransholme Health Centre, the Orchard Centre and Wilberforce Health Centre now have every light replaced by an LED fitting, saving tens of thousands of pounds a year. As well as using less energy, LEDs are brighter than standard compact fluorescent lighting, give big savings on costs and last up to a decade, ten times as long as a normal light bulb. The final light of the programme was fitted by Sewell FM technicians Andy Richardson and Craig Webb at Elliott Chappell Health Centre on 14 December 2023, making Hull the only city to have all their health centres fully fitted with LEDs. Community Health Partnerships is the head tenant at 308 healthcare buildings, built under the LIFT programme in England.
So far, 24 are fully LED lit (as of May 2023), and 13 of those are in Hull, so the city is leading the way in energy-efficient lighting. Community Health Partnerships is an NHS property company wholly owned by the Department of Health and Social Care.