Hywel Dda University Health Board (UHB) is leading the way in Wales and the UK in supporting people to switch to more environmentally friendly inhalers and reduce their carbon footprint.

Inhalers contain essential medicines that help people with asthma, COPD, and other lung conditions. However, up to 80 per cent of inhalers prescribed in the UK use greenhouse gas propellants thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide. They are safe to the person using them, but impact climate change as the single largest contributor to the NHS’s carbon emissions of any medicine.

The good news is there are modern inhalers, dry powder inhalers and soft mist inhalers, that are much kinder to the world because they don’t contain greenhouse gases.

Currently across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, the percentage of dry powder inhalers prescribed is at 48.7 per cent, the highest now in the UK following a big push from nurses, pharmacists, doctors and especially patients this year.

Hywel Dda UHB is also the fastest changer in Wales with no increase in respiratory problems. The NHS Wales target is a shift to 80 per cent of dry powder inhalers by 2025, so there is still some way to go.