Design for Life

Image source: https://whatartcando.org/?project=health-waste Maria Koijck

DHSC Design for Life (DfL) Collaborative

Design for Life (DfL) is a collaborative initiative between government, industry, the health and care sector, and academia to explore and identify practical actions that enable a substantive and sustained increase in the level of reuse, remanufacture, and materials recovery in the medical technology sector.

These actions will need to address the core objectives of the initiative:

  • improving supply resilience
  • creating opportunities for growth
  • identifying potential cost savings, and
  • supporting sustainability targets.  

The MedTech sector has become heavily reliant on single-use medical devices, which exposes safe and continued patient care to significant vulnerability. Volatility in raw material and energy supply and prices, trade embargoes and tariffs, transport constraints, and sudden spikes in demand are all disruptive factors faced by this supply model.

Working in collaboration with the CEctor project, within the CE Hub Programme, the first output was the Medtech Spotlight Report. Following this, in October 2024, the DHSC Design for Life Roadmap was launched.

MedTech Spotlight Report
Accelerating Circular Economy Adoption

This report advocates for a paradigm shift to a circular economy, rejecting the linear ‘take-make-waste’ model. The circular economy, rooted in principles of waste elimination, material circulation at peak value, and natural capital regeneration, presents a transformative opportunity for the MedTech sector.

DHSC
Design for Life Roadmap

The government’s plan to build a circular economy for medical technology to increase resilience, drive growth, realise cost savings and improve sustainability.

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