The patient perspective on the environmental impact of inhalers

Introduction

Increasing the proportion of low-carbon inhalers prescribed within the NHS forms a central part of net-zero policy. Yet, the patients’ perspective on this strategy has not been determined. We aimed to establish if environmental issues are important to respiratory patients and whether this may influence inhaler choice.

Methods

We conducted a survey of 61 respiratory patients at the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, London to establish their perspective on the environmental impact of inhalers.

Results

We identified that 70.5 % (43/61) of patients did not know that inhalers could contribute to climate change. Furthermore, 85.3 % (52/61) of patients felt it was ‘quite’ or ‘very important’ to reduce their own contribution to climate change. Importantly, 59 % (36/61) of patients would actively want to change inhalers and 26.2 % (16/61) would consider changing inhalers based on this information. There was no significant difference based on age (< or ≥ 60 years) (Chi² = 1.2, p = 0.28) or gender (Chi² = 0.88, p = 0.77).

Discussion

These findings demonstrate that environmental issues are important to respiratory patients. Despite this, the environmental impact of inhalers is not routinely discussed with patients. Once provided with this information patients actively want to change to low-carbon inhalers. Hence, the environmental impact of inhalers should be shared with patients to help us to achieve a net-zero NHS.