The Heatwave Plan for England (HWP) was first published in 2004 as a result of the 2003 pan-European heatwave which accounted for an extra 2,000 extra deaths in England and Wales, and is an important health protection tool in the government’s National Adaptation programme – preparing the UK to be ‘climate ready’. The plan is prepared by Public Health England, in collaboration with NHS England and the Local Government Association, supported by the Met Office and the Department of Health.
It aims to raise awareness of the harm to health from heatwaves and sets out actions to be taken by commissioners, health and social care professionals, individuals, local voluntary and community organisations, local government organisations and facilities such as care homes and hospitals, during a heatwave. Local areas are expected to take the recommendations in the HWP and adapt them to their own particular context.
With climate change, extreme temperatures are likely to become more normal and there is a need to evaluate the HWP to ensure that it is effective and recommends the right actions. The Department of Health, with Pubic Health England, has therefore commissioned the Policy Innovation Research Unit to carry out an independent evaluation of the HWP.
A significant part of the evaluation will be to look at the extent to which the HWP is implemented locally by health and social care services. The evaluation will include a sample of local authorities as ‘case studies’ from a number of regions across England, covering urban and rural areas with different weather patterns and other demographic factors.
Data collection for this part of the evaluation will include:
• Interviews with a small number of selected senior/middle health and social care managers responsible for planning for hot weather (e.g. selected members of Local health Resilience Partnerships, Director of Public Health, managers/resilience officers in Acute/Community Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups).
• Interviews/focus groups with staff working at the frontline of health and social care (e.g. those responsible for people who may be more at risk during extreme weather conditions). These might include community nurses, health visitors, social workers, home carers and people working as carers in care homes.
• Carrying out a short online survey of other identified key health and social care personnel involved in hot weather planning following the summer (2017).
• Collecting documents, such as local plans, strategies, guides and public
information relating to the HWP at a local level, for analysis. This would include any information provided on websites.
• Observing heatwave/climate change planning/strategy meetings (one per case study site)
This part of the evaluation will take place between April 2017 and March 2018, so we can look at how planning occurs at different times of the year.
Staff members will be invited to participate in interviews/focus groups in writing.
Information provided will explain that participation is voluntary and will provide assurances about confidentiality and that the project findings will be reported anonymously, without identifying individual people or organisations. Participants may withdraw their consent at any time.
As well as interviews with health and social care managers and frontline staff, there are several other components to the evaluation.
• A time-series analysis of regional health data linked to weather to characterise heat-health relationships and trends over time.
• A national survey of the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of the general population during heatwaves
• Interviews with a small number of the general public liable to be at risk from periods of hot weather (around 5-10 people per site). Interviews will discuss their risk awareness and behaviour before, during and after heatwaves.
The evaluation has ethics approval: LSHTM Ethics Ref. 12004/21.3.17 and is seeking R&D approval from the Health Research Authority.
The evaluation will submit a final report to the Department of Health and Public Health England in autumn 2018.
Extreme Events & Health Protection T +44 (0)20 7811 7153
Wellington House www.gov.uk/phe
London SE1 8UG
22 March 2017 Dear colleague
Re: Independent Evaluation of the Heatwave Plan for England
The Department of Health have commissioned the Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU) based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), to carry out an independent evaluation of the Heatwave Plan for England.
One part of the evaluation involves carrying out a small number of case studies with local authorities about any planning undertaken for dealing with hot weather in their area. Your local authority has been selected to be one of these case studies, and Public Health England would be most appreciative if your organisation would agree to help the evaluation team with this research. This will mainly involve PIRU researchers carrying out a small number of interviews with managers and frontline staff. Further details about the case studies are included in the accompanying LSHTM letter.
The results of the evaluation will be immensely helpful to Public Health England in improving the Heatwave Plan for England. The results will feed back into our regular updates of the Plan, the recommendations it contains, and our communications with local partners, so that it becomes more relevant and useful to local authorities and other users around the country.
I do hope that you will be able to support this work.
Kind regards
Dr Angie Bone
Head of Extreme Events and Health Protection, PHE Angie.Bone@phe.gov.uk
Appendix 3
PHE letter
of support
Appendix 4 Participant information sheet (staff)
INFORMATION SHEET FOR PARTICIPANTS
Title of Study: Evaluation of the Heatwave Plan for England
Researchers: Bob Erens, principal investigator; Tommaso Manacorda; Lorraine Williams; Shakoor Hajat and Nick Mays
Ethics approval: [insert date and reference number of LSHTM ethics approval]
Nature and purpose of the study:
The Department of Health has commissioned the Policy Innovation Research Unit to undertake an independent evaluation of the Heatwave Plan for England (HWP). The purpose of the study is to determine how effective the HWP is including how well it is being implemented locally and to identify any opportunities for improving the plan in future years. The study will take place from January 2017 until December 2018.
What is involved in participating in the study?
We would like to interview people to find out their views and experiences of protecting patients and the public during heatwaves and about any actions have been prompted as a result of the Heatwave Plan. The interview will be either face-to-face or over the telephone and will likely last around 45 minutes.
Who is funding the study?
The study is being funded by the Department of Health Confidentiality and anonymity:
Interviews will be conducted in confidence by one of the research team. We would like to record interviews with your permission. The transcript will be anonymous and stored securely in line with Research Ethics Committee guidelines. When reporting findings to the Department of Health and publishing findings in academic journals, care will be taken to ensure that no individual or organisation can be identified.
Contacts for further information:
Thank you for reading this information sheet and for considering taking part in this research.
Department of Health service Research and Policy
tommaso.manacorda@lshtm.ac.uk Tel: 020 7958 8291