The film – the People’s Emergency Briefing – is a public information initiative to ensure the UK is fully briefed on the climate and nature crisis.

It presents the national implications of climate and nature breakdown – along with credible, positive responses – in a single, accessible account designed for screening in communities across the UK.

Now the Doctors’ Association (DAUK) is asking doctors and healthcare professionals to take the film into hospitals, GP surgeries and healthcare organisations.

Climate crisis

Dr Matt Lee, DAUK’s sustainability lead, said: “The climate and nature crisis is increasingly recognised as a health emergency, affecting patient outcomes, health inequalities and NHS sustainability.

“This powerful film provides an opportunity to build understanding of the  issues we’re facing, but also to empower people to take positive and meaningful action.”

The 50-minute film comes from the National Emergency Briefing, held at Westminster in November.

The briefing brought together leading experts to present the latest evidence on the climate and nature crisis to politicians and other influential people in Westminster.

National Emergency Briefing

The new film combines authoritative scientific content from the National Emergency Briefing (NEB) with reactions from members of the public and some more familiar faces – designed to help audiences process the information on a more human level.

It will deliver the frank facts about the threats, but also the enormous benefits if the Government leads genuine emergency action.

A typical screening requires a 60 to 90-minute slot. This allows time to view the film and for discussion using guidance provided by the NEB team.

Great British Green Week

DAUK is encouraging screenings to be held during Great British Green Week (8 to 15 June) to drive collective momentum and action.

Once the date, time and location of your event have been confirmed, please complete this form and the event details will be shared with the NEB team, DAUK, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) and the All-Wales Climate Smart Education Group, to assist with the promotion of healthcare screenings across the whole of the UK.

Once you have submitted this form, please register for an account with the NEB interactive map to receive the link to the film: https://nebscreeningmap.netlify.app/signup

For more information, including discussion facilitation guides and advice on hosting a screening, visit: https://www.nebriefing.org/the-film 

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

The Doctors Association UK warned the move posed a serious threat to global public health.

Dr Matt Lee, DAUK’s sustainability lead, said: “The health impacts of climate change do not respect national borders.

“Decisions made in Washington affect disease burdens worldwide, including in the UK.”

Greenhouse gases

The so-called endangerment finding formally established that greenhouse gases endangered public health and welfare.

It has provided the legal foundation for federal emissions controls in the US.

Its removal dismantles a cornerstone of evidence-based public health protection at a time when the health impacts of climate change are intensifying, said Dr Lee.

Climate change

DAUK emphasised that climate change was not solely an environmental issue but a public health crisis with immediate consequences for patients.

Rising temperatures are increasing heat-related mortality, air pollution from fossil fuel combustion is driving cardiorespiratory disease, and extreme weather events are disrupting healthcare systems, destroying homes and threatening food security.

Shifting climate patterns are also expanding the geographic range of infectious diseases. These harms are documented, measurable and affecting patients now.

Patient safety

By stripping away the scientific and regulatory basis for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, DAUK said the decision represents a rejection of evidence-based policymaking in favour of ideology, with predictable and preventable impacts on patient safety.

DAUK’s position is clear in that climate action is health protection.

Dr Lee said: “Trump’s actions are anomalous on the global scene, with more than 99% of scientists across the world agreeing that climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and is already harming human health.

“The USA is an outlier in increasing it’s reliance on fossil fuels, with even China’s emissions now in decline.

UK climate leadership

“But we cannot let that distract from demonstrating climate leadership in the UK.

“To be clear, any political party that is threatening to rollback environmental protections or scrap net zero poses the very same threat to human health in the UK.

“We must, as healthcare professionals should always do, focus on the science, challenge misinformation and encourage our leaders to take stronger climate action for the sake of all our health.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

Improve health

It has been submitted to the new Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds, and Defra Minister, Dame Angela Eagle. They are urged to use the Government’s upcoming food strategy to champion plant-rich diets. Dr Lee said: “People in the UK are not eating enough plant-based foods – in particular, vegetables, pulses, legumes, fruit, nuts, seeds and wholegrains. “The evidence is unequivocal that public health will improve if we can secure a transition towards more plant-rich diets. “That dietary transition can reduce the burden of disease and ease pressure on the NHS.

Food security

“Such a transition offers the potential to work with British farmers to enhance food security in the UK through promoting locally grown, plant-based products, something ever more important in a changing climate. “The Government has everything to gain by taking ambitious action.” Liam Lysaght, is campaigns officer at Foodrise, a charity aiming to transform the food system for climate, nature, and justice He said: “The government has highlighted the need to break the cycle of intensive animal agriculture in the UK, and produce a genuine Good Food Cycle.

Plant-rich diet

“This paper shows widespread agreement from health, environment, and food professionals that we can achieve those goals with practical, integrated, policies to promote more plant-rich diets. “It’s a perfect cheat sheet for the new ministers at Defra.” Read the policy paper. DAUK committee members are all volunteers and speak to the media about issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

Dr Toberty told national radio listeners that the government needed to invest in public health to improve the health of the nation and prevent people getting unwell.

Speaking on Nick Ferrari’s breakfast time programme on LBC, Dr Toberty said: “We need to look at public health and the reasons why we are unwell and getting unwell.

“The public health budget has been slashed by about a third in real terms since 2010.

“We need to urgently look at and try to improve the health of our nation proactively and not just wait until people are getting unwell.”

Dr Toberty was commenting on the latest NHS referral to treatment figures for June 2024 show that the waiting list stood at 7.6 million cases, with an estimated 6.4 million patients.

Among the 7.6 million, in 302,693 cases the patient was waiting more than 52 weeks, the NHS said.

In 58,024 cases they were waiting more than 65 weeks, in 2,621 cases they were waiting more than 78 weeks, and in 120 cases they were waiting more than 104 weeks.

In 58.9 per cent of cases the patient had been waiting up to 18 weeks, missing the target of 92 per cent.

Dr Toberty told national radio listeners that she was not surprised by the figures.

Waiting lists

“As a nation we are unhealthy and sick,” she said.

“There are one in nine of us waiting for treatment at the moment, and I don’t think there are any quick fixes.

“I know about the suffering and the difficulties our patients are having, and not just the patients but their families and their carers around them.

“When we have these problems, it starts to put pressure on the rest of the health service because a problem initially then creates problems with pain and depression and other things.

“People have to go somewhere with those issues so you can see how things quickly escalate.

“I’m glad this is a top priority for the government, and it needs to be.

“If we can bring waiting lists down I am convinced we will reduce some of the pressures on the acute parts of our services.”

Dr Toberty said the government should look at investment in the NHS as an investment in the wider economy.

“This needs investment,” she said “They need to pay overtime, and we need to get this down.

“This is an investment in our health service, in our economy, in getting us well and back on our feet again.”

Listen again to Dr Toberty’s interview on the DAUK page on X.

Become a member of DAUK and support our work.

Dr David Nicholl from the Doctors’ Association UK speaks out on lockdown sceptics and emphasises the need to follow public health measures.

“We need to get through this together as a community.” he said, “It’s a very grave situation. In many ways, the situation is deteriorating and it is really, really important that people listen to public health advice.”

“Covid-19 is a very serious condition. Earlier this week a friend of mine died of it. It’s really important that the story of Covid-19 comes from healthcare professionals such as The Doctors’ Association UK, but also nursing staff and others, so that people realise the gravity of this condition and where we’re heading, which is not a pretty place.”

“It is fantastic news about the vaccine, but we still have to follow the public health measures.”

However, we are concerned that such laudable statements do not tally with last week’s budget, suggesting yet more cuts to public health funding that covers prevention initiatives run by Public Health England. We understand Mr Hancock is not expected to announce any measures to aid health prevention, and therefore we must question how this will be funded.

In addition doctors are concerned that asking people to take more responsibility for their own health pushes the blame for diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and and cancer onto patients, who do not choose to develop these illnesses.

Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, Chair of DAUK, said “Mr Hancock’s aims are admirable, and doctors would be the first to support the old adage of ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’. You cannot prescribe any medication to replace a healthy lifestyle, and doctors have long been giving patients advice on how to keep well such as stopping smoking and eating healthily. However, we must recognise that such choices are complex, and many of these lifestyle factors are associated with poverty.”

Dr Alan Woodall, GP & Public Health lead for DAUK, said: “Personal responsibility is not the main driver for improvement in health. Without funding and policy change to reduce the obesogenic environment, further reduce smoking and drug use, improve social cohesion and recognise wider political policy impacts on health, this strategy unlikely to succeed.”

CONTACT

Contact@dauk.org