You Mean the World: Exhibition Launch (Hybrid)
Nursing in a climate crisis
25 Jun 2025, 17:30 - 20:00
Choose event information:
This exhibition explores the history of air pollution and of recycling and re-use in nursing and shows how talented nursing teams are taking climate action today – from green social prescribing to developing sustainable nursing tools.
Join us for the launch of our new exhibition about nursing in the climate crisis. Enjoy free refreshments and a chance to look around the exhibition alongside activities and talks on the history and future of nursing in a climate crisis.
Join us online for talks 6 - 7:30pm
Nursing staff are on the frontline of the climate crisis. They see its impact first-hand – from diseases linked to air pollution to the damaging effects of extreme heat.
Our You Mean the World: Nursing in a climate crisis exhibition explores the history of air pollution and of recycling and re-use in nursing and shows how talented nursing teams are taking climate action today – from green social prescribing to developing sustainable nursing tools. Highlights include redesigned and repurposed medical gowns from PPE Refashioned, AHRC-funded research led by Prof Katherine Townsend, Nottingham Trent University.
Speakers include:
- Hear from Professor Christine Hallett about her research on the work of nurses during the First World War. Known as the ‘first industrial war’, the conflict escalated the processes that would later be recognised as so damaging to our planet. Military medical scientists developed new technologies and surgeries in attempts to counter the destruction wreaked on soldiers’ bodies by innovative weaponry, and nurses used their expertise to implement these treatments. But nurses also stood between the old world of natural therapies and the new world of chemical and mechanised treatments. Far from simply executing the decisions of the medics, these highly trained experts used the natural world and their own therapeutic presence to heal their patients’ trauma. Christine will explore a range of these treatments, from fundamental care skills, nutrition and hydration to the use of fresh air and sunlight as wound-healing measures and the presence of self to relieve mental and emotional trauma.
Christine Hallett is a professor emeritus of the University of Huddersfield and an affiliate of the University of Liverpool. She trained at the University of Manchester in the 1980s, then worked as a district nurse and health visitor before returning to the university to pursue an academic career. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a Board member of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and a former President of the European Association for the History of Nursing.
- Hear about actions being taken today to reduce the environmental impacts of healthcare delivery and to make positive change from Rose Gallagher, RCN Nursing Sustainability Lead, who will discuss the RCN work on sustainability and why it matters in health and care.
Rose Gallagher MBE, RCN Professional Lead for Infection Prevention and Control and Nursing Sustainability Lead, provides strategic leadership and specialist professional advice to the RCN, its members and key stakeholders across the UK on sustainability and the implications for nurses and nursing. She leads the college’s professional nursing activity on action to mitigate and adapt to the effects of a warming planet, in particular the nursing contribution to environmental sustainability. She has successfully led the RCN Glove Awareness Week and Small Changes Big Differences campaign focusing on procurement and use of consumables to influence sustainability in health and care delivery. She is a trustee of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.
- Plus hear from Dr Kenneth Barker, Clinical Lead for the National Green Theatres Programme, on the work involving clinicians being undertaken to reduce the carbon footprint of theatres across NHS Scotland and enabling more environmentally sustainable care.
Kenneth Barker trained in anaesthesia in Dundee and in Sweden. He has been a consultant in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness since 2000, and developed an interest in environmental issues and sustainable medicine. He is a keen supporter of grassroots change, co-founding Green Anaesthesia Scotland(@GreenAnaesScot) to spread the message about achievable change in medical practice. From 2020 to 2024 he served on council of the Association of Anaesthetists and chaired the Environment and Sustainability committee, and in 2024 he joined the board of Health Care without Harm (HCWH) Europe. He is now Clinical Lead of the National Green Theatres Programme hosted by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and President of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists.
Joining us in person? Drop in activities at the exhibition launch include:
- Show and Tell showcasing nursing history through objects from the RCN Archives.
- Add your reflections on climate change to our creative question panel.
If you are joining online you will need access to the internet via a computer or smart phone.
Following the launch, the exhibition will be open for visitors Mondays to Thursdays 10 – 4pm.
This event is open to all.
If you have any questions or accessibility needs, please contact us on scotland.library@rcn.org.uk or 0131 662 6163.
Read the full terms and conditions for our events.
Library Team
scotland.library@rcn.org.uk
0131 662 6163
RCN Scotland Headquarters (Edinburgh)
42 South Oswald Road
Edinburgh
EH9 2HH
2.5 miles from Edinburgh Waverley Station
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Page last updated - 19/05/2025
