Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has added 13 Nissan eNV200 vans to its fleet in a new deal.
The vehicles will be used to deliver medical supplies, samples and mail between its hospitals throughout the region.
It is expected that the vehicles will save the trust up to 80% in transport costs, and reduce carbon emissions by 59 tonnes a year – compared with diesel vans – while the trust has won a local sustainability award since introducing the vans to its fleet.
“With increasing financial challenges on the NHS, we needed to make the service more efficient while being more environmentally friendly, so decided to look at whether electric vehicles could work for us,” said Michael Taylor, Northumbria Heathcare’s hotel services manager.
“We approached Nissan and put the eNV200 on trial. The results were so positive with significant savings on the cost of diesel and therefore we decided to add 13 to our fleet,” he added.