Climate change and the social care sector

• Written by: Anne Marte Bergseng — ClimateXChange — Knowledge Exchange Manager
• Published: 23rd September 2021

Anne Marte from ClimateXChange shares the impacts climate change has on social care.

This summer saw wild, hot and wet weather causing disruption and taking lives in communities across the globe. The heat wave in Canada and the USA, and the devastating floods in Germany and Belgium are some of the international examples. Closer to home flash flooding following unusual summer heat has hit communities in Scotland and across the UK. What does this changing climate mean for the social care sector?

Earlier this summer the UK Climate Change Committee released its Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk (this link will take you away from our website) saying the UK is ‘struggling to keep pace with climate change impacts’. The summary for health and social care (this link will take you away from our website) points to flooding, overheating, and water scarcity as the main concerns. There could also be increasing risks from high winds or storms, and changes in air quality.

These risks will impact the social care sector both as disruption to the services from transport and access issues, and through people who access support and services changing medical needs. It is also important to remember that the impacts of climate change are not evenly felt. Those already disadvantaged or in poor health are disproportionately impacted.

This is recognised in Climate Ready Scotland: Second Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme (this link will take you away from our website) , which has an aim of ‘Scotland’s health and social care is ready and responding to changing demands as a result of the changing climate’. It also acknowledges that ‘impacts on these services will likely disproportionately affect those who are already more at risk. The programme lists a number of actions underway to improve the sector’s resilience.[1]

At the same time every organisation and every one of us individually have a role in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.  Travel, waste and energy use are some of the practices where organisational and individual everyday practices can be part of taking us in the right direction, with a wealth of resources (this link will take you away from our website) available to inspire and enable change to reduce the unhealthy and dangerous impacts of a warming world.

About the author: Anne Marte is the Knowledge Exchange Manager at ClimateXChange (this link will take you away from our website) – Scotland’s centre of expertise connecting climate change research and policy. She manages research projects on behaviour change and adapting to the impacts of climate change and is a knowledge exchange expert with 20+ years’ experience from media, corporate and science communications, and facilitation. In addition to specific research projects she works across ClimateXChange’s portfolio to connect research and Scottish Government policy-making.  

This blog was specially commissioned as part of the Health and Social Care Academyand Scottish Care’s ‘Climate Change and the Social Care Collective’ roundtable series. The roundtables are helping to foster dialogue and explore the crucial role that social care must play in the context of climate change – in addressing, adapting to and taking action to mitigate the impacts.

The last roundtable session will be held on October 20^th 2021, from 10:00 – 12:00. More information can be found on Eventbrite (this link will take you away from our website)

[1] Last year ClimateXChange published a report (this link will take you away from our website) looking at how social care at home services had faired through three extreme weather events. The research found that extreme weather events result in a substantially increased workload for care workers and managers in the care at home sector.

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