The Jackdaw Gas Field: Is A Matter Of Patient Safety 

Posted by: Alice - Posted on:

Health for XR position statement

On 21 October 2026, the government gave consent for gas production at the Jackdaw field in the North Sea (GOV.UK).

Health for XR is a collective of health professionals who “recognise our professional responsibility to demand and support appropriate, proportionate and urgent action to protect our patients and the public from the escalating health harms of the climate and ecological emergency” 

We regard this decision as a patient safety matter. It extends the UK’s reliance on burning fossil gas at a time when the health evidence on air pollution and the escalating climate health harms is clear. A safer route, set out by the government’s own climate advisers, is already available. 

As health professionals, we have a collective duty to say so.

Our position

  1. Jackdaw is a health decision, not only an energy decision. Burning fossil fuels “pollutes the air we breathe and warms the planet” (Royal College of Physicians). A decision that commits the UK to more of it should be judged on its health consequences.
  2. It doesn’t deliver the benefit patients most need. The Energy Secretary has confirmed it will not lower energy bills this winter. For patients in cold, damp homes, lower bills are what matter most.
  3. A safer alternative exists. The Climate Change Committee’s highest-priority recommendation is to make electricity cheaper, so that clean heating is affordable (Climate Change Committee, 2025). In approaching patient safety, removing a hazard is always preferred to managing its effects.
  4. Health professionals have a duty to raise concerns. That duty applies when patients may be at risk of serious harm from systems and policies, not only from individual clinical failings (GMC).

The decision

  • Consent: the government cited energy security, jobs and the economy (GOV.UK). The Energy Secretary said the decision is “compatible with our legally binding climate commitments” (BBC).
  • Bills: Jackdaw’s gas will be sold at international market prices, so households get no discount (Independent).
  • Energy security: the impact will be “relatively marginal”, contributing less than 3% of the UK’s total gas needs. Official forecasts suggest around 1.6% of projected national gas demand between 2026 and 2036 (BBC).
  • Emissions: the field’s environmental assessment puts lifetime emissions at up to 35.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, around 90% of Scotland’s total emissions in 2023. The operator, Adura, says a more likely figure is about 23.6 million tonnes (BBC). Adura also says the field will “not materially influence” climate change (BBC). We disagree: climate health harms are cumulative, and every major source of emissions adds to it.
  • Public cost: From 2022 to 2024, the tax system gave back up to 91p for every £1 invested in new North Sea extraction (BBC).
  • Tax relief on decommissioning across the North Sea will cost at least £11.7bn, and could exceed £23bn if all operators default (E3G).

The health evidence

  • Deaths: the equivalent of around 30,000 UK deaths a year may be attributable to air pollution by 2025 (Royal College of Physicians).
  • No safe level: “There is no safe level of air pollution” (Royal College of Physicians).
  • Climate worsens air quality: “Climate change will worsen air quality by increasing the frequency of wildfires and heatwaves, which release pollutants” (Royal College of Physicians).
  • Cost to healthcare: air pollution’s health effects cost UK healthcare an estimated £2.6bn in 2019 (Royal College of Physicians).

We do not claim that any specific death will be caused by Jackdaw – our concern is the direction of travel. This decision deepens reliance on a fuel whose combustion creates considerable health harms across the entire population and whose emissions drive the heatwaves and wildfires that worsen air quality.

The safer route

  • Remove policy costs from electricity: the Climate Change Committee’s “highest-priority recommendation is to remove policy costs from electricity prices”. These costs are charged on each unit of electricity “at 20 times the rate of gas”. Removing them would cut bills by about £490 a year for a typical household with a heat pump (Climate Change Committee, 2025).
  • Remove artificial levies: the Committee calls for removal of “policy costs and levies that artificially increase the price of electricity”, and rates progress in this area so far as “some but insufficient” (Climate Change Committee, 2026).
  • Heat pumps: Prioritising the reduction of the cost of electricity as above, coupled with the continued and expanded roll out of incentivisations would help reverse the low uptake of heat pumps that has been slowing progress on decarbonising home heating (National Audit Office, 2024).

Cheaper electricity, warmer homes and moving households off gas would all reduce exposure to the hazard. Approving more gas production does not.

What we are asking for

Government

  1. Publish a health impact assessment of the Jackdaw decision, covering climate and air quality effects, and commit to the same for Rosebank and future production decisions.
  2. Act immediately on the Climate Change Committee’s highest-priority recommendation: remove the remaining policy costs from electricity bills.
  3. Expand programmes to move households off gas cookers and gas heating. Prioritise homes with children with asthma or other respiratory conditions, and homes in the most deprived areas.
  4. Judge the Rosebank decision explicitly against its health consequences, alongside energy security and the economy.

Health institutions

  1. The GMC, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the royal colleges should recognise that raising concerns about systemic threats to public health, including those arising from energy policy, is consistent with professional duty.
  2. NHS bodies and directors of public health should set out publicly what continued reliance on fossil gas means for local health needs, including asthma, heat-related illness and cold homes.

Health professionals

  1. Raise concerns through professional and democratic channels: your royal college, your union, your MP and your local health bodies.
  2. Talk with patients, honestly and without alarm, about air quality and the impact of government policy decisions that will directly impact their health.
  3. Stand with colleagues who act on their clinical competencies and conscience, to protect patient safety.

How many lawful routes are left open

The government’s next decisions will show whether lawful routes still work:

  1. A health impact assessment: whether the government publishes one for Jackdaw, and commits to doing so before deciding on Rosebank.
  2. The cost of clean heating: whether it acts on the Climate Change Committee’s highest-priority recommendation to remove policy costs from electricity bills.
  3. Rosebank: whether the decision is judged openly against its health consequences, alongside energy security and the economy.

These are reasonable tests, and they can be met. We urge the government to meet them. We are also willing to meet with the government to discuss the health of the population.

The duty of a health professional

The patient comes first

Health professionals are bound by four principles: beneficence, avoiding harm, justice and respect for autonomy. They are tested most when a recognised threat to public health isn’t being addressed through ordinary channels.

Risks from systems and policies must be raised

If patients are at risk because of “policies or systems”, doctors “should first protect patients and put the matter right if that’s possible”, then raise the concern (GMC, Good Medical Practice). Where patients “are, or may be, at risk of death or serious harm for any reason”, doctors should report it “immediately”. They should not delay “because you yourself are not in a position to put the matter right” (GMC).

This guidance was written for workplaces and health organisations, but its logic holds when the risk comes from national energy policy. When patients may face serious harm, our ethical and professional duties are engaged.

Root causes, not only symptoms

Health professionals treat the asthma attack, the heatstroke and the cold-related chest infection. Our duty also extends to the conditions that produce them.

Honesty and proportion

We credit the government for being candid that Jackdaw will not lower bills this winter, and we ask for the same candour about its health consequences. We do not overstate the evidence, and we expect decision-makers not to understate it.

Questions for the profession

We offer these questions for discussion among colleagues, in teaching and in public debate. 

Beneficence 

  1. Who benefits from Jackdaw, and is that benefit to health? If it won’t lower bills this winter, what does it offer a patient in a cold, damp home?
  2. If removing policy costs from electricity would save a heat pump household about £490 a year, which option does more good for patients?

Avoiding harm

  1. If there is no safe level of air pollution, what extra harm is acceptable in exchange for energy security, and who decides?
  2. A clinician who could remove a hazard but chose only to manage its effects would be asked to justify that choice. Should energy policy be held to the same standard?
  3. Is “will not materially influence climate change” an adequate safety argument, when every major source of emissions could make the same claim?

Justice

  1. What do we owe children not yet born, whose health depends on emissions decided now?

Autonomy and informed consent

  1. Has the public been given the information needed to understand the health trade-offs of this decision? What would informed consent look like across a whole population?
  2. Patients are told the risks and benefits of an intervention. Should citizens be told the health risks of an energy decision made on their behalf?

Candour and precaution

  1. Clinicians have a duty of candour when things go wrong. Should decision-makers have an equivalent duty to be open about foreseeable health harms before things go wrong?
  2. Where evidence of serious harm is strong but its exact size is uncertain, does the precautionary principle require action, or permit delay?

Professional duty and conscience, alongside clinical competency

  1. The GMC expects doctors to raise concerns about risks from “policies or systems”. Does that duty stop at the hospital door, or a GP surgery?
  2. Is professional neutrality on a recognised public health threat itself a position, and is it defensible?
  3. What is the moral injury to health professionals who treat the effects of a hazard they feel unable to name as its cause?
  4. At what point, if any, can lawful routes be said to have failed? What evidence would a health professional need before concluding that conscience alongside clinical competency requires more than lawful advocacy?
  5. If a health professional engages in civil disobedience and accepts the consequences, how should the profession weigh their motives against their duty to uphold the law in the context of individual patient safety and the wider health of the population?