The Manchester-based Christie NHS Foundation Trust, a world-leading hospital and expert in cancer care, research, and education, has taken four new Toyota Yaris hybrids as dedicated hourly rental vehicles from Enterprise Car Club.

The new Enterprise Car Club vehicles are being used by the Christie At Home team, a group of eight nurses who work in shifts to visit cancer patients in the local community and therefore travel very frequently by car. Previously, they used their own cars for business trips and claimed ‘grey fleet’ mileage reimbursement.

As part of ongoing measures to ensure the utmost efficiency and sustainability, the Christie Trust worked with Enterprise to analyze employee journey patterns and usage to establish if rental could offer a better solution. It formed a key part of the Trust’s green travel plan to reduce the need for cars to be brought on-site and lower the emissions for business travel mileage.

The number-crunching process identified that dedicated car club vehicles, available on-site for employees to hire by the hour or the day, would be a more cost-effective and sustainable mobility option and significantly reduce the number of vehicles parked at the hospital.

In addition, using a car club ensures that the nurses are in vehicles that are modern and regularly maintained, and that also feature the latest fuel-efficient engines. This will enable the Trust to reduce both travel emissions and risk as the nurses’ privately-owned vehicles are generally older and may not be as frequently serviced and checked.

The four car club vehicles have been taken on a pilot basis, with plans to expand the fleet to cover other staff at The Christie in the future. This initial program has already enabled the Christie At Home team to halve the number of cars it uses and parks on-site.