United Kingdom: Adverse Weather and Health Plan
Categories: Action Line 1: Surveillance and monitoring, Climate-related emergency preparedness and management, Climate-transformative leadership and governance, Air quality, Drought, Floods, Health systems wide resilience, Heat and cold, Storms
Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Organizations: UK Health Security Agency
The intervention
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) established the Adverse Weather and Health Plan (AWHP) to coordinate national preparedness and response to heatwaves, cold spells, drought, flooding, storms, and thunderstorm asthma. The AWHP, underpinned by the Weather Health Alerts (WHAs), supporting evidence document and guidance and communication materials, outlines roles, responsibilities, and implementation steps for the public and professionals to protect lives and promote health and wellbeing. It provides a unified national framework integrating meteorological forecasts and health system intelligence, and assessment of contextual factors that may influence observed impacts through the Weather-Health Alerts system, and emergency coordination across national and local authorities, thereby protecting vulnerable populations from weather-related health risks.
Success factors
The AWHP’s effectiveness lies in its multi-sectoral collaboration and evidence-based design. The agency drew on expertise from environmental and public health institutions to ensure accurate forecasting and risk communication. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation activities maintain the plan’s relevance and usability. Engagement with local health and community organizations ensure timely activation and dissemination of alerts. Integration with the NHS and public-health surveillance systems allows data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement. Cross-government collaboration is essential to sustain its impact.
Recommendations
Adaptability and continued stakeholder engagement are key to implementing and sustaining the relevance and effectiveness of health plans for local context and against the backdrop of dynamic weather patterns. Other countries replicating this model are recommended to ensure alignment of early warning systems with local profiles and capacities. In addition, establishing clear governance systems between different agencies is important to ensure shared accountability.
Key resources
- Adverse Weather and Health Plan
- Weather-Health Alerts page on UKHSA Data Dashboard
- The economic value of the Met Office report
- Heat Mortality Monitoring Reports (2020-2024)
- AWHP supporting evidence document
- WHA User Guide
- Results from 2022 heat mortality report feed into the 2023 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
Click here to return to the Belém Health Action Library