Misson Statement

Our mission is to provide an efficient and cost effective service in relation to the collection, storage and disposal of all waste streams across all South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust Acute sites.

What we do:

  • Management of clinical and municipal waste contracts 
  • Advise on all compliance and non-compliance waste management issues 
  • Support the Trust to maintain legal compliance with all waste and environmental legislation to reduce the risk of sanctions by enforcement authorities i.e. the EA or HSE
  • Waste compliance audits and pre-acceptance audits 
  • Arrange ad-hoc collections of confidential waste
  • Waste management training 
  • Manage the on-duty waste porters who collect, transport and store all clinical, municipal waste, WEEE waste and other hazardous wastes from around the STDH site

  • Community Home Patient Clinical Waste Collections - To set up a home patient collection you must firstly ensure that the consent to release information form is signed by the patient - this form stays with your team or/ and on the patients record. You must then complete the Home Collection Request Form and email it to stsft.wastemanagement@nhs.net and cc in Helen Johnson - helen.johnson19@nhs.net and George Cook - george.cook4@nhs.net

What we don't do:

  • Arrange ad-hoc collections of unwanted or damaged furniture or equipment; this is done through the Facilities Transport Department

Who we are

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Andy Kane
Head of Health, Safety and Facilities
Telephone: 404 1186
Email: andy.kane@nhs.net

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Gordon Smith
Environmental Waste and Porter Manager
Telephone: 404 1190
Email: gordon.smith16@nhs.net

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Helen Johnson
Waste Compliance Officer
Telephone: 404 1185
Email: helen.johnson19@nhs.net

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George Cook
Environmental Waste Officer
Telephone: 2546
Email: george.cook4@nhs.net​​​​​​​

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Michael Simons
Waste Porter Surpervisor
Telephone: 2546
Email: m.simons@nhs.net

 

Where we are based

Waste Management
Health, Safety & Facilities Department
1st Floor East Block (Education Centre)
South Tyneside District Hospital
Harton Lane
South Shields
NE34 0PL

Waste Porters

All porters carrying out waste duties receive comprehensive waste management training to help the Trust achieve compliance with waste and environmental legislation.

What we do

Collection, storage and disposal of all clinical and municipal waste around the STDH site

What we don’t do

We do not collect unwanted furniture / equipment, WEEE or other hazardous wastes from around the site

Location

Waste Compound
South Tyneside District Hospital
Harton Lane
South Shields
NE34 0PL

Who to Contact

Waste Porters, South Tyneside District Hospital Site
x2245, or contact via bleep on 50176

Home Patient Collections

Since December 2018 following the failure of the clinical waste contract (HES), home patient collections continue to be covered by the waste management team at South Tyneside District Hospital.

The procedure to arrange a home patient collection is as follows:

  • Email requests for new home patient collections must be forwarded to

    stsft.wastemanagement@nhs.net using the home collection request form. *please see HP clinical waste collection request form

If you have any questions please contact Helen Johnson on 0191 404 1185 or Gordon Smith on 0191 404 1190 or email stsft.wastemanagement@nhs.net

 

Confidential Waste

The Waste Management Team at South Tyneside District Hospital oversee the confidential waste contract on the following sites:

  • South Tyneside Hospital
  • Palmer Community Hospital
  • St Benedict’s Hospice
  • Clarendon
  • Ad hoc collections (as required)

Due to a substantial increase in confidential waste disposal costs it has been necessary to reduce the frequency of collections across the STDH site with all areas now being serviced either fortnightly or monthly.  The new schedule has been implemented with the aim to save money by reducing unnecessary collections .  We appreciate that there may be some initial teething problems and ask that you get in touch with us if you have any problems or concerns.  The waste team will be carrying out weekly checks of all confidential waste consoles/bins to check:

  • Current capacity is sufficient
  • Consoles and bins only contain confidential Trust waste

We recently carried out a sampling exercise on twenty consoles and bins and found the contents to be approximately:

  • 30% Trust confidential waste
  • 10% staff passports, bank statements and  bills etc.
  • 60% Recyclable materials i.e. plain A4 paper, magazines, newsletters, leaflets, food cartons, sweet wrappers, paper hand towels, paper food plates and cups, plastic document pockets and machine calibration graphs etc.
  • There were also a few large metal bulldog and paperclips which would damage the shredding machine

We are also able to provide additional bins on a temporary basis if your team or department are having a clear out meaning you will produce more confidential waste than usual.

We’d also like to remind you that if any item needs to be retrieved from the confidential waste bins or consoles you can contact the following:

STDH

within office hours (08:00 – 16:30, Monday to Friday)

George Cook, Environmental Waste Officer, email george.cook4@nhs.net or telephone 0191 404 1000, ext. 2546

Helen Johnson, Waste Compliance Officer, email helen.johnson19@nhs.net or telephone 0191 404 1185

Gordon Smith, Environmental Waste & Portering Manager, email gordon.smith16@nhs.net​​​​​​​ or telephone 0191 404 1190

outside of office hours

Security at South Tyneside Hospital on Ext. 3070

Palmer Community Hospital

within office hours (07:00 – 20:00, Monday to Friday)

Duty Porter, ext. 8027

St Benedict’s Hospice

within office hours (07:30 – 20:30, Monday to Friday and 08:00 – 16:00, Saturday and Sunday)

Duty Porter, ext. 8443 or 07717 730216

Clarendon

within office hours (08:30 – 16:30, Monday to Friday)

Admin / Reception, ext. 1107

Waste Ownership Streams

Waste Stream

Ownership
Clinical Waste Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Pharmaceutical Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Cytotoxic/cytostatic Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Anatomical Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Single use instruments Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Municipal (domestic) waste Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Waste electrical and electronic equip. Head of H, S and Wellbeing

Chemicals/mercury

 Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Batteries Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Damaged/Unwanted furniture Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Mattresses infected/non infected Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Scrap metal Head of H, S and Wellbeing
Confidential  Head of Facilities
Asbestos Head of Estates
Scrap Metal  Head of Estates
Machine Oils Head of Estates
Building Materials Head of Estates
Light bulbs/fluorescent tubes Head of Estates
Paint and paint tins Head of Estates
Timber and wood dusts Head of Estates
Waste cooking oil Head of Catering 
Food Waste  Head of Catering 
Computer equipment Head of IT
Hard drive erasure and destruction Head of IT
Low level radioactive waste Head of Medical Physics
Controlled drugs Head of Pharmacy
Patient records Head of Medical Records
X-ray film Head of Medical Records
Waste from home births Women’s Services Business manager
Sensitive destruction of foetal remains Histopathology manager
Laboratory chemicals Histopathology manager
Pacemakers/implanted defibrillators Head of Cardiology
Dental waste Head of Dental Services
Gypsum (plaster of Paris casts and plaster from building waste)

Head of Estates –

Not started
Toner cartridges/inkjet cartridges Charitable donations to Great North Air Ambulance
Uniform Head of Facilities
Medical Devices Head of Biomedical Engineering

Process for making ad-hoc requests for collection of waste

Requests for ad-hoc waste collections should be made by contacting the Single Point of Contact on x2909 or inputted directly on to the Bactraq system.

Sharps containers returned by patient’s or patient’s representative

If the sharps and container were prescribed by the Trust then we must accept them for disposal as it is legally our waste; however if the sharps and container were prescribed by their GP the Trust cannot legally accept them for disposal and the patient should be advised to return them to their GP or Pharmacy.

“NHS England manage the contracts for disposal of sharps bins from GP practices. They stated last year that it was acceptable for GP practices to accept sharps bins from their patients , in fact they should, for disposal. As far as I know there are no restrictions other than the ability for GP practices to store the bins. As long as we aren’t talking about a flood of lots of bins or you issue particularly large bins that practices would struggle to store, there should be no issues” - North of England Commissioning Support Unit

GP and Pharmacy Clinical Waste Disposal Factsheet (link asset 6351) * please see https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2016/05/clncl-waste-factsht.pdf

DATIX Waste Incident Reporting

To report non-compliant waste related incidents on DATIX follow the example below.

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