§ Dr. GodmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment he has made of the methods of the incineration of clinical waste at hospitals in(a) Inverclyde, (b) Strathclyde and (c) Scotland as a whole; and if he will make a statement.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonIn 1989 a major study of all Scottish NHS clinical waste hospital incinerators and the source and quantity of all NHS clinical waste arisings was undertaken.
The study allowed strategic planning to be undertaken to cope with the introduction of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Since that original report, other studies for the north, east and west of Scotland have been undertaken and used to assist NHS trusts to work as consortiums to achieve the most economic and safest way to treat and dispose of their clinical waste. Some NHS trusts because of local circumstances, have already installed new incinerators to meet the full technical standards required by the Environmental Protection Act 1990, whilst others are at tender stage.
Among those currently tendering are NHS trusts in the following health board areas: Greater Glasgow, Lothian, Forth Valley, Tayside, Grampian, Highland, Orkney and Shetland.
Trusts in the following areas—Argyll and Clyde, Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire and Arran, Fife, Lanarkshire, Borders and Western Isles—now either have clinical waste plant to the required standard or are sharing facilities among themselves.