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Is the UK prepared for heatwaves?

A heatwave is defined as three consecutive days where daily maximum temperatures meet or exceed a specific threshold. Heatwaves are becoming more common in the UK, and recent high temperatures have raised questions about how prepared the UK is for extreme heat. 

What are the risks?

Heatwaves pose a wide range of risks, many of which interact with each other and can compound. Heatwaves pose risks to human health and, in extreme cases, lives. Heatwaves can also disrupt transport, infrastructure and services, and result in lower economic productivity. Actions taken to adapt to heatwaves can have knock-on effects for other sectors. For example, increased use of active cooling measures such as air conditioning can lead to spikes in electricity use, resulting in increased emissions and the potential for power outages.

What is the government doing?

Government policies to address heatwaves cuts across different sectors and departments.

In the immediate term, the Cabinet Office is responsible for coordinating emergency responses to heatwaves, and both the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Met Office are responsible for issuing heat alerts.

In the longer term, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) holds strategic responsibility for climate change adaptation policy, although many other departments play a role in ensuring that their specific sectors are resilient to heatwaves. Defra publishes the national adaptation plan, which sets out policy actions to adapt to the impacts of climate change, including heatwaves.

There is no single overarching plan to adapt to heatwaves or increase resilience to extreme heat.

Progress and scrutiny

Progress on UK heatwave policies is scrutinised by the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC), Parliament and wider stakeholders. Many have called for an overarching plan to address heatwaves.

The CCC’s 2025 adaptation progress report recommended stronger actions, including:

• incentives for regulated sectors to adapt to extreme heat
• considering extreme heat risk in energy planning
• a long-term, cross-sector, heat-risk plan
• the government to improve the way in which it disseminates information about public health and heat

The government’s response to the CCC’s 2025 report highlighted existing frameworks for sharing responsibility across sectors under the national adaptation plan, alongside departmental policy progress.

In 2026, the CCC’s Well-Adapted UK report went further, identifying cooling and protection from heat as among the highest adaptation priorities. It called for vulnerable settings, such as care hospitals, schools and prisons to be made more resilient through a mix of active cooling, passive measures (such as designing places with more shade) and retrofit (such as the installation of shutters). It also suggested that the government could introduce maximum workplace temperatures. The government has not yet responded to this report.

Parliamentary scrutiny has echoed the CCC’s concerns. The Environmental Audit Committee’s 2024 inquiry into heat resilience and sustainable cooling called for a national cooling plan, which the UK is expected to produce by the end of 2026. In June 2026, the committee again wrote to the government during a heatwave to ask about its plans for addressing overheating.