The dangers of overheating are invisible to those most at risk

Overheating in UK homes is an unfolding public health crisis, with temperatures rapidly rising to levels our housing is not designed to cope with. Throughout June, the NHF is working with CIH on an campaign to raise awareness of overheating. In this blog, Victoria Brown, Policy Executive at Foundations explains who is at risk and what must be done.

Somewhere in the UK right now, an older person is sitting at home, probably still in their jumper. Their room is 28 degrees. Although they feel fine, they are not fine.

This is the key problem with overheating: the danger is often invisible to those most at risk. Unlike flooding or a burst pipe, excessive heat in the home leaves no obvious wreckage.

In 2022, almost 3,000 people in England and Wales died from heat-related causes. The vast majority were over 65. Most of them did not die in hospital or a care home, but in their own home. These were often private dwellings where nobody was checking on the person or the temperature, and where the person inside had no idea they were in danger.

A recent roundtable hosted by Foundations which brought together academics, local authority practitioners, housing adaptation specialists, policy groups and public health professionals made one thing clear: the housing sector is not prepared for the crisis unfolding.

A system that wakes up too late

According to participants at the roundtable, every autumn, public health machinery grinds into gear. Winter preparedness campaigns launch, flu jabs are administered, cold home and fuel poverty advice goes out. Although it is an imperfect system, it does exist.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent for overheating. As one of the roundtable participants noted, "it's everybody's problem, so it's nobody's problem." Alerts go out during heatwaves, advice lands late after warm weather arrives, but by then it’s often too late.

The people at highest risk are not hard to identify. According to the roundtable, they are those who are: living alone, on a low income, with limited mobility, not leaving the home daily, with no daily social contact, and with conditions like cardiovascular disease or psychiatric illness. These are often the people who need home adaptations (often with a Disabled Facilities Grant), and who live in social housing.

The fixes are not that complicated

From the roundtable, I learnt that the fixes for overheating are simple and cost effective. External shutters are the gold standard, but reflective coatings, window films, and night ventilation all work well, too. Combinations of all of these measures outperform any single fix.

These are all cheap relative to installing, maintaining and running air conditioning units, a hospitalisation or care crisis.

What needs to change

Another participant told us that many older people do not see themselves as vulnerable to heat. Messaging goes out to people who are ‘vulnerable’ or ‘elderly’, but many over 65s just do not see themselves as part of that group. When we think a narrative doesn’t apply to us, we do not heed any warnings. Waiting for people to ask for help is not a strategy. Messaging around overheating works better when it comes from trusted, already established contacts.

Aside from that, in the UK, we generally don’t see warm weather as a hazard either. Warm days are relished, particularly after cold and drizzly winters and the effects of heat on these mild days is underestimated. When there is a heatwave, some people approach them with excitement instead of wariness.

So what can be done?

While the housing sector is proactive in making homes warmer, cooling them down is often reactive. We learnt from housing professionals that work with older and disabled people that measures to prevent overheating aren’t usually triggered unless a clinical referral is made.

Moreover, when homes are adapted to make them more energy efficient, overheating is just not on everybody’s radar. Yet people discussed cases where the same adaptations that can enable someone to stay independent and safe at home can inadvertently cause overheating and worsen their health.

What's needed is proactive identification, knowing our homes and who lives in them, understanding who is most at risk before summer and mitigating the risk of overheating before summer arrives, not after. It means embedding heat risk into routine housing assessments and care planning and preventing overheating before it begins.

Last summer broke records and this summer might too. Our summers are getting hotter - the question is when the teams and tools that we have to protect the most vulnerable will catch up.

If you want to continue this conversation or learn more about adapting homes so people can remain independent for longer, feel free to look at our website or reach out to me.