NHS saves thousands on disposing of waste IT equipment

More than 30 NHS Trust in England are forecast to save hundreds of thousands of pounds on the disposal of redundant IT equipment after reaching an agreement with a leading South West recycling company.

Previously, the NHS has paid significant sums for its end-of-life IT equipment to be disposed of.

Now, that equipment, and its components, will either be recycled or prepared for resale by The Electronic Waste Company, allowing the equipment to be disposed of at no charge to the NHS.

The agreement means more money will be available for patient care.

Simon Wilde, The Electronic Waste Company’s Business Development Director explained: “Historically, equipment collected from the NHS was often simply destroyed. Nowadays, frankly, that’s environmental and financial madness. Our experience in IT equipment and reuse means we can extract the maximum value from every single item of equipment we collect and so can afford to offer a no-cost collection service to the NHS, saving individual Trusts thousands of pounds every year.”

More than 30 NHS Trusts are now using The Electronic Waste Company, with discussions underway with many more and a number of Strategic Health Authorities.

While office IT equipment forms the majority of the waste items, the agreement will also cover items such as imaging equipment, TVs, lighting, portable appliances and beds.

To ensure data security, any information held on computers is destroyed using methods in line with those employed by the defence industry.

The items are then checked for electrical safety and assessed to either be resold, repaired or dismantled and recycled. No items are sent to landfill.

Simon continued: “We know that to enable the best patient care, the NHS needs to keep its IT and other electronic devices up to date, and that means replacing existing items. We don’t believe that disposing of the old equipment should add to that cost.”

The Electronic Waste Company currently serves Primary Care Trusts from Devon to Manchester and acute Trusts and shared services in the South of England and the Midlands.

The company also provides a no-cost collection service for schools, local authorities, companies and other organisations.

More information on the company’s services is available from www.ewasteco.com or by calling 0845 201 1380.

ENDS

For further media information, interviews or high-resolution images, please contact Tim Bowcock at Black Cat Public Relations on 01872 306403.

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 12th, 2010 at 8:56 am and is filed under News.