Heatwave Plan for England - GOV.UK

1 Heatwave plan for England Protecting health and reducing harm from severe heat and heatwaves The Heatwave Plan for England : Protecting health and reducing harm from hot weather 2 Contents Excecutive summary .. 3 Chapter 1. The importance of this plan .. 5 Making the case: the impact of heat on health now and in the future .. 5 The Heatwave Plan: a plan to protect health from heat-related health impacts .. 6 The Heatwave plan and health and social care arrangements .. 7 Chapter 2. The heat-health alert service .. 11 Level 0: long -term planning to reduce risk from heatwaves.

2 11 Level 1: Heatwave and summer preparedness .. 12 Level 2: Alert and readiness .. 12 Level 3: Heatwave action .. 12 Level 4: Emergency response .. 12 Met office Heatwave warnings .. 13 Chapter 3. Summary of Heatwave plan levels and 18 Using the action tables .. 18 Commissioners of health and social care (all settings) and local authority Directors of Public Health .. 20 Providers: health and social care staff in all settings (community, hospitals and care homes) .. 22 Community and voluntary sector and individuals .. 25 National level: NHS England , UKHSA, DHSC, Met office , other government departments.

3 27 Key public health messages .. 30 Chapter 4. Anticipated impacts for other sectors during a Level 4 Heatwave .. 34 Chapter 5. Monitoring and surveillance .. 38 Chapter 6. Recommended next steps for the NHS and local authorities .. 40 Annexe 1. Key triggers temperatures .. 41 Annexe 2 Public Health Core Messages .. 43 Annexe 3. Heatwave advice and mass gatherings .. 44 Acknowledgement .. 46 The Heatwave Plan for England : Protecting health and reducing harm from hot weather 3 Excecutive summary The Heatwave Plan for England is a guide to protect the population from heat-related harm to health.

4 The aims of the plan are to prepare, alert and prevent the major avoidable effects on health during periods of severe heat in England . It recommends a series of steps to reduce the risks to health from prolonged exposure to severe heat for: the NHS, local authorities, social care, and other public agencies professionals working with people at risk individuals, local communities and voluntary groups The plan was first published in 2004, following the devastating pan-European Heatwave in 2003. This plan builds on many years of experience of developing and improving the ability of the health sector and its partners to deal with significant periods of hot weather.

5 The Heatwave Plan for England was significantly re shaped in 2012. Updates were made to reflect the changes in the health care and public health landscape, to align the Heatwave plan more closely with its sister Cold Weather Plan for England and to link planning for severe heat with the Public Health Outcomes Framework. The plan continues to be underpinned by a system of Heatwave alerts, developed in collaboration with the Met office . It describes the heat-health alert system which operates in England from 1 June to 15 September each year. During this period, the Met office may forecast heatwaves, as defined by the forecasts of day and night time temperatures and their duration.

6 The heat health alert system comprises of 5 main levels (Levels 0 to 4); this ranges from long term planning for severe heat up to a major emergency response. Each alert level should trigger a series of appropriate actions which are described in detailed in this Heatwave Plan. This plan is a good practice guide and the actions described are illustrative and can be used to adapt local Heatwave plans. It is a collaborative plan supported by NHS England to protect and promote the health of the population. There are 3 key messages we recommend: 1. All local organisations should consider this document and satisfy themselves that the suggested actions and heat-health alerts are understood across the system and that local plans are adapted as appropriate to the local context.

7 2. NHS and local authority commissioners, together with multi-agency local resilience forums (LRFs) and Local Health Resilience Partnerships (LHRPs), should satisfy themselves that the distribution of heat-health alerts will reach those that need to take action. The Heatwave Plan for England : Protecting health and reducing harm from hot weather 4 3. NHS and local authority commissioners, together with multi-agency LRFs, should satisfy themselves that providers and stakeholders take appropriate actions according to the heat-health alert levels. Note The NHS is currently working on updating their missions and procedures of operations before and during heat-health alerts This document will be amended in accordance with the latest modifications.

8 Please ensure you have the latest version. The Heatwave Plan for England : Protecting health and reducing harm from hot weather 5 Chapter 1. The importance of this plan There is strong evidence that heatwaves can lead to death; this is covered in more detail in Section 5. These heat-related deaths are in excess to the baseline rates of mortality during these periods of heat. Excess deaths is a term used in epidemiology and public health that refers to the number of deaths from all causes during a crisis that would occur above and beyond those expected under normal conditions.

9 Excessive exposure to high temperatures can be fatal and the evidence for the risks to health from heatwaves is extensive. During the summer Heatwave that occurred in northern France in August 2003, there were unprecedentedly high day and night-time temperatures for a period of 3 weeks resulted in 15,000 excess deaths; the vast majority of these were among older people aged 65 and above. In England during the same period which lasted from 4 to 13 August 2003, there were over 2,000 excess deaths compared to the previous 5 years during the same period. Following the 2003 Heatwave , the first Heatwave Plan for England was published in 2004.

10 There have been other subsequent significant heatwaves in England . For example, in 2006, there were approximately 680 excess deaths, and in 2009 there were approximately 300 excess summer deaths. The total all-cause excess mortality estimated from the 3 heatwaves in the Summer of 2020 was 2,556 deaths. The number of deaths observed during this period likely to reflect the combined impacts of the Heatwave and several other factors. This includes those related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic though the exact nature of these impacts still requires further exploration.