NHS: Dangerous Waste and Body Parts Disposal

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about incinerator capacity; indeed, that was given as a reason by the company. However, we do not feel that that is a true reflection of incinerator capacity. There are 24 incinerators in the country and 30,000 tonnes of spare capacity which could be used, and we are talking about 900 tonnes of excess stockpiling that HES had taken care of—so we simply do not accept that there was not enough capacity. What there was not was a willingness on the part of HES to pay for that capacity, which is why we are in this situation.

On the frequency of inspections, the Environment Agency has issued a series of notices, and that has escalated over the summer to the situation that we are in now. That is the proper regulatory response. I reiterate the point that there is no established threat to public health or continuity of service, which hopefully answers her last question. From an NHS point of view, neither clinicians nor patients will have noticed any impact on the level of care as a consequence of what I absolutely agree with her is completely unacceptable behaviour by this company.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

The Minister mentioned 30,000 tonnes of spare incinerator capacity. Is that for general waste or exclusively for medical waste? Will the Minister encourage the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to engage with the public on the importance of incineration as a means of disposing effectively of both household and medical waste? We are currently exporting a massive amount of household waste from the city of York and north Yorkshire to Holland, where it is put back in the community as energy from waste. I would like to see more of that occur in this country.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I will certainly take up the issue of waste disposal in general with my colleagues in Defra who, as she knows, are responsible for it. On the specific question of incineration capacity, Defra calculated that in 2017 there was a total of more than 30,000 tonnes of spare capacity for clinical and hazardous waste incineration. That was across a year, but we know that the NHS has identified more than 2,000 tonnes of incineration capacity this month. So the capacity is there; the point is that it should be used to get rid of the stockpile. As I said, the contracts are now in place to ensure a continued flow of service to NHS trusts.