The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has awarded £690,750 to seven development research projects focused on helping the UK’s health and social care systems adapt to the growing risks posed by climate change and extreme weather.
The funding forms the first phase of a wider NIHR initiative to improve national climate resilience across health and social care. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and storm surges are increasingly disrupting the delivery of safe and effective care, affecting hospital staff and patients, care home residents, and people reliant on community based social care. These impacts fall most heavily on vulnerable groups, with the potential to widen existing health inequalities.
Building capacity for climate resilient care
The NIHR Climate Change and Health Development Awards support early stage work to strengthen system adaptability during extreme weather. Each project receives up to £100,000 to undertake preparatory activities including:
- building research capacity
- forming partnerships between academics, health and social care professionals, and policymakers
- refining research methods and securing access to data
- identifying key knowledge gaps
- assessing impacts on infrastructure, staff and services, with a focus on vulnerable populations
This development phase is designed to prepare teams to apply for NIHR Climate Change and Health Research Collaboration Awards, which offer up to £2 million per project over a period of up to three years. These larger awards are open to all researchers, including those who did not receive a Development Award.
Together, the two funding streams represent a long term commitment by the Department of Health and Social Care and NIHR to embedding climate resilience at the core of UK health and social care systems.
Climate change as a growing health challenge
The initiative reflects growing international recognition of climate change as a major threat to health. At the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific advisor to the Department of Health and Social Care and chief executive of the NIHR, highlighted the urgent need for evidence to address climate related health challenges and identified this as a priority area for NIHR.
Professor Danny McAuley, scientific director for NIHR Programmes, said: “We must focus on research that helps health systems adapt and build resilience as we face more extreme weather. Climate change will impact disadvantaged communities the most and we need to ensure health and care services can continue to provide the necessary care. It will also deepen existing health inequalities. That’s why these projects, which are focusing on some of the most vulnerable populations, are more important now than ever before.”
The 7 funded projects
The seven development projects are:
- PREPARE for Health: Prison Resilience Planning and Response to Environmental Extremes for Health
Led by Dr Dawn Marie Walker at the University of Southampton. The project will explore how extreme weather disrupts prison healthcare, identify vulnerable groups, and lay the groundwork for future research to improve services and reduce health inequalities. - WARM: Whole system Adaptation for Resilient Mental Health
Led by Professor Peter Coventry at Manchester Metropolitan University and Professor Tim Doran at the University of York. The project will examine how extreme weather affects mental health services, working with experts and people with lived experience to identify vulnerabilities and set research priorities. - Heat resilient paediatric care: Prioritising safe adaptations to overheating in children’s hospitals
Led by Dr Chengzhi Peng at the University of Sheffield. The project will develop a Heat Risk Mapping tool to identify overheating risks in children’s hospitals and create tested strategies and guidelines to protect vulnerable patients during heatwaves. - SHIELD: Social care Heat action implementation to protect everyone in long term care and domiciliary services
Led by Dr Daniel Hind at the University of Leeds. The project will work with NHS staff to design and test practical cooling strategies and establish a national expert group to develop affordable solutions that protect staff well-being and patient safety during heatwaves. - THERMOCARE: Cost effective interventions to improve heat resilience of healthcare staff in hospitals
Led by Professor Davide Filingeri at the University of Southampton. This project will design and test strategies to help NHS staff cope with extreme heat and will build a national expert group to develop affordable, practical solutions. - ARCHI: Adaptation for Resilience and Equity in Communities and Health Infrastructure
Led by Susie Vernon at Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and Professor Rajat Gupta at Oxford Brookes University. The project will assess how heatwaves affect hospital safety and will bring together researchers, staff and patients to plan cost effective building upgrades and pilot improvements that protect vulnerable patients. - Strengthening healthcare resilience to climate extremes: A spatial modelling framework
Led by Dr Sarah Wise at University College London. The project will develop a computer simulation to test how extreme weather, including floods and heatwaves, disrupts the blood supply chain, creating a digital tool to support emergency planning by NHS Blood and Transplant.
Laying the groundwork for long term impact
The funded projects focus on practical, evidence based approaches to safeguarding health and social care services while prioritising equity. NIHR says the investment lays the foundation for more ambitious research aimed at protecting public health and ensuring continued access to high quality care as climate driven extreme weather becomes more frequent.