A SCOTTISH NHS contractor is at the centre of a major national incident after being forced to stockpile hundreds of tonnes of human body parts and waste earmarked for incineration.
So far it looks as if only a number of health boards in England are affected.
The Shotts based Healthcare Environmental Services Ltd (HES), owned by Scottish businessman Garry Pettigrew, currently hold the contract on around 20% of the healthcare waste disposal market in England and Wales, and hold the sole contract servicing all NHS hospital sites in Scotland.
The firm say a lack of incineration capacity has led to amputated limbs, infectious liquids, cytotoxic waste linked to cancer treatment and hazardous pharmaceutical waste and waste material building up to unsustainable levels. According to leaked documents seen by the Health Services Journal, at HES’ Normanton site, excess waste levels had reached 350 tonnes in September, five times more than the company’s 70 tonne limit.
The health and social care secretary Matt Hancock recently chaired a meeting of the government’s Cobra – a body more commonly associated with terrorist attacks and national emergencies – where he ordered £1 million to be earmarked to help up to 50 NHS trusts.
HES is also attempting to export 750 tonnes of pharmaceutical waste to Holland.
In the last year, the Environment Agency has served 13 warning notices and two “compliance notices” on HES for not disposing of its waste within regulatory time frames.
Affected trusts are understood to include Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust, Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole FT, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, and East and North Hertfordshire Trust.
HES collects around 584 tonnes of “incineration-only” waste and 1972 tonnes of non-hazardous waste per month from trusts.
In a statement the company said: ”Healthcare Environmental has highlighted the reduction in the UK’s high-temperature incineration capacity for the last few years. This is down to the ageing infrastructure, prolonged breakdowns and the reliance on zero waste to landfill policies, taking up the limited high-temperature incineration capacity in the market.
”Over the last year, this reduced incineration capacity has been evident across all of the industry and has affected all companies. Healthcare Environmental has been in discussion with the environmental regulators and has consistently highlighted these issues, whilst we have maintained service to all our clients. There has been no disruption to our customers’ services whilst we have been dealing with this issue.
”We are working closely with our various disposal sites, including utilising our own £13m new waste to energy facility to reduce the volume on site, whilst maintaining services.”
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