Local Authority Risk and Adaptation Toolkit: Heat Edition

Why preparing for heat matters

High temperatures, hot weather and heatwaves can increase risks of illness and death, especially for vulnerable populations. With climate change driving more frequent and intense heatwaves, proactive planning is essential.

A toolkit to help local authorities prepare for heat risks

The Local Authority Risk and Adaptation (LARA)(LARA) Toolkit: Heat Edition is designed to help councils understand and respond to the health risks posed by hot temperatures. It provides a simple, structured way to: 


• assess preparedness for heat-related health risks, including current areas of strength
• identify gaps and areas for improvement in local plans and services
• a baseline against which you can benchmark future activity and demonstrate progress
• assess approaches to protect at risk groups such as older people, children, and those with health conditions
• plan practical actions guided by national guidance and good practice
• monitor your progress using our dashboard of visualisations 

The LARAtool Toolkitincludes supportssections collaborationon acrossthe localfollowing:

1. Leadership.
2. Local authority departmentswide action and partners,communications.
3. Care helpingsettings: torisk buildgroups resilience(for example, people aged 65 and reduceover, preventablethe harmdisabled, fromand highthose temperatures,with hotunderlying weatherhealth conditions) living in care settings (such as care and heatwaves.
   nursing homes).
4. Home and domiciliary settings: risk groups (for example, people aged 65 and over, the disabled, and those with underlying health conditions) living in their own home or domiciliary settings.
5. Young people.
6. Children and Young Peoples Settings: Schools, Education and Care.
7. People experiencing homelessness, including rough sleepers and those who are unable to make adaptations to their living accommodation such as sofa surfers or those living in hostels.
8. Settings: Homes.
9. Planning.
10. Vulnerability due to occupation.
11. Infrastructure.
12. Adverse Weather and Health Plan cross-cutting actions.

Example visualisations from the LARA pilot dashboard

Figure 1. LARA pilot dashboard

Figure 1 shows how on completion of the LARA Toolkit, the user will be provided with a number of data visualisations that demonstrate how their local authority is addressing heat risk. This includes a spider diagram covering all action areas and relative strengths, a table using colour coding to illustrate relative strengths and clearly identified strongest category as well as category for further improvement.

What

Guidance thefor LARAusing Toolkitthe includes

TheThis LARAframework Heatis Editionbest helpscompleted with input and contributions from a range of local authoritiesauthority reviewcolleagues.

This andmay improveinclude theircolleagues preparednessfrom fordifferent heat-relatedauthorities healthin riskstwo-tier acrossand 12combined keyauthority areas:systems of local government.

1. Leadership

   Each –local briefingauthority will have its own partnerships and engagementcollaborative ofmechanisms senior(such leadersas partnership boards Inc Climate Change Boards, Health and electedWellbeing members.

2. LocalBoards authority-Wideand Actionother governance structures) which may assist in completing this tool.

   However, we encourage Directors of Public Health and CommunicationsPublic –Health teams to lead its completion.

   We encourage input from colleagues working within adult social care, children’s services, public health, sustainability, environment, emergency planning, publichousing, messaging,planning and staffeducation training.

3. Carecolleagues.

   You Settingswill –be protectingrequired andto supportgive olderyour adultsauthority a rating, detailed below, and disabledare peoplerecommended into caresupport your self-assessment with documentation and nursingor homes.

links.
• Home No andAction Domiciliary= CareNo –evidence protectingto and support olderlocal adultsauthority andaction disabledon peoplethis livingactivity.
• Partial inAction their= ownSome homes.evidence to support local authority action on this activity.
• Children Completed andAction Young= PeopleGood –evidence safeguardingof healththis into schools,support earlylocal years,authority andaction socialon carethis settings.activity.
• People

Once Experiencingcompleted, Homelessnesslocal –authorities actionsmay forwant roughto sleepersconsider andhow thosethey incan insecurebest housing.

4. Homesuse –the assessingframework andto adaptingfacilitate housingtheir stockfuture action on heat. They may also want to reduceconsider overheatingcomparing risks.
5. Planningtheir –assessments embeddingwith heatother resiliencelocal authorities to learn from each other.

   Note: UKHSA will not ‘assess’ local authorities’ responses.

   Once you have filled out each of these tabs the tool will generate a number of figures that are displayed in planningthe policiesDashboard andtab, newincluding developments.

6. Occupationa –spider protectingdiagram outdoorof relative strengths and indoora workersscore fromdistribution heatenabling stress.
7. Infrastructurecomparison –across preparingthe transport,12 energy,areas andof waterwork. systemsAcross this tool, areas that are to be completed by the user will be filled blank, whilst locked sections which are for heatyour impacts.
reference will be filled in grey.

Download the LARA toolkit:

Local WeatherAuthority Risk and HealthAdaptation PlanTool (AWHP)- Heat Edition

MS -Excel implementationSpreadsheet, 278 KB

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