Climate Adaption Plan

Hywel Dda University Health Board (HDUHB) is seeking support to establish and embed a whole system approach to climate adaptation and consider how the Health Board will mitigate the risks and impacts of climate change and climate events into population health strategies and broader Health Board service delivery, aligned to and enabling the work already being undertaken on decarbonisation.

External support is required to build upon the learning and insights from the recent Climate Adaptation work and published framework/reporting guidance, to ensure that HDUHB is able to devolve the requirements and responsibilities into day-to-day activity through the development of a clear plan of action for climate change adaptation and resilience, which harmonises with the Health Board’s existing decarbonisation delivery plan.

Scope

To develop a localised Climate Adaptation Plan for HDUHB which is aligned to the requirements set out in the Local Partnerships Adaptation Framework and toolkit for NHS Wales. Key focus is on the area of climate adaptation which should complement the health boards existing Decarbonisation Delivery Plan (and 46 approved initiatives) and aim to embed climate adaptation into health/clinical service planning and delivery.

The plan should include a clear set of actions/initiatives that enable the health board to manage the unavoidable impacts of climate change specifically on its services/service delivery and on population health. The consequences of doing nothing can be catastrophic, impacting greatest on the most vulnerable, so actions/activity should be fair and equitable.

Not in scope – Climate ‘Mitigation’ activity – Buildings/Estates, Transport/Travel, Procurement, waste, low carbon healthcare projects e.g. eliminating single use plastics.

Provider Experience – The provider must have:

• Demonstrable experience working with Welsh Government in relation to climate adaptation within health services and be able to evidence development of national policy and/or strategy documents at a government or local health board level.
• Significant experience and knowledge of the Climate Change Adaptation agenda across the Welsh landscape and have demonstrable experience and understanding of the risks/impacts of climate change on population health and local health services
• Demonstrate a clear knowledge of climate adaptation planning and action setting for health and an understanding of how to support/enable health boards to meet Welsh Government expectations and reporting requirements.

Key Outputs

• Review of current internal activity and documentation/policies/frameworks, gap analysis, identify internal opportunities for programme alignment with decarbonisation. Setting the local context for HDUHB, stakeholder analysis, data gathering and risk identification with mitigation activities, opportunity mapping - to be delivered via workshop activity (which relates to steps 1-3 of adaptation toolkit, please request if required) and includes a combination of both 1:1 and group sessions, other internal/external stakeholder engagement and align activity/actions to reporting requirements.
• Development of project plan and timelines with defined project objectives/goals/milestones and desired outcomes.
• Determine scope: identify boundaries of work, including inclusions and exclusions
• Assign responsibilities: make recommendations regarding resource allocation for further development of climate adaptation, including all relevant HDUHB staff partners.
• Inform communication plan: in consultation with the climate adaptation group members and wider public health directorate/communications staff establish how and when project updates will be communicated to stakeholders.
• Define success criteria: provide options for how the success of the climate adaptation plan could be measured and evaluated aligned to Welsh Government expectations for adaptation reporting.
• Provide a summary analysis to highlight areas requiring further development or modification.
• Attend regular meetings with the climate adaptation project team and other relevant parties. Present findings and progress updates.
• Report Production: Development of a final draft Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan, with clear, realistic and achievable actions.

Timeline

The provider must have the capacity to start the Climate Adaptation Plan immediately and ensure the project is completed by 31st March 2025.