Including Adaptation in your Green Plan – adaptation plan template and guidance for the NHS

Introduction

The third iteration of the Government’s National Adaptation Programme, published in July 2023, includes some mention of adapting the NHS, including asking NHS organizations to summarize their adaptation plans in the Green Plan. However, as of summer 2024 there is little guidance on how the NHS should carry out climate change risk assessments or produce an adaptation plan.

Sustainability West Midlands in collaboration with the Environment Agency has produced an open-source tool, called Adapt to Survive, for building resilience to climate change into health care systems, with a focus on the NHS in England. Following this, a pilot project was carried out in 2024 which set out to produce a range of resources and activities to help build capacity within the NHS to adapt to climate change. This was carried out by Sniffer and Sustainability West Midlands (SWM) in partnership with NHSE North West, NHSE North East & Yorkshire, and NHS Greater Manchester (GM).

As part of this pilot project, Sustainability West Midlands produced this Climate Change Adaptation Plan Template, which includes reference to Adapt to Survive as well as other free, open-source resources including the Climate Adaptation Framework developed with Sniffer and an NHS Task & Finish group. The guide for including adaptation in your Green Plan is targeted at NHS Trusts, but also includes advice on regulatory reporting requirements for other NHS organizations, and can be useful context and advice even when not using the Adaptation Plan Template.

Search for the tag #NHSadapts to learn more about this project and to access the other resources produced.

Please note: The advice in this article and the attached resources are recommendations produced by SWM and Sniffer, fed into by partners within the NHS. Whilst it refers specifically to guidance from NHSE and makes an effort to elaborate on or further explain this, it is not official NHSE guidance or regulation. You should ensure that you are informed of the specific regulatory expectations of you and your organization before submitting plans.

Including adaptation in your Green Plan

In October 2020, the Greener NHS National Programme published its new strategy, Delivering a net zero National Health Service. The 2021/22 NHS Standard Contract set out the requirement for trusts to develop a Green Plan to detail their approaches to reducing their emissions in line with the national trajectories. Integrated care systems (ICSs) are expected to develop their own Green Plan, based on the strategies of its member organizations.

The three outcomes of Green Plans should be to:

• Ensure every NHS organization is supporting net zero
• Prioritize interventions as well as improve patient care and community wellbeing while tackling climate change and broader sustainability issues
• Support to plan and make prudent capital investments whilst increasing efficiencies

The NHS have published Green Plan guidance. There are seven sections to include in your plan, one of which is Adaptation:

“This section should summarize your organization’s plans to mitigate the risks or effects of climate change and severe weather conditions on its business and functions. This may include plans to mitigate the effects of flooding or heatwaves on the organization’s infrastructure, patients, and staff.”

Download the ‘including adaptation in your Green Plan’ resource on this page for advice on how to do the above.

Writing a Climate Change Adaptation Plan

This is one of the best ways to ensure adaptation can be most effectively carried out and embedded into your organization’s services.

The downloadable Adaptation Plan Template is intended to be used as a working document to produce your own climate change risk assessment and adaptation plan. Rather than telling you how to assess your risks and adapt to climate change, this template acts as a starter when you are not sure where to begin and an idea for how to lay out the information you will need for effective adaptation planning. The template does, however, include reference to a range of resources that can help you assess your risks, build your ability, and help you plan to adapt to climate change (also available through WeAdapt under the tag #NHSadapts).

Throughout the Adaptation Plan Template, pieces of information are highlighted as things you could include in your Green Plan, either as they are or summarized. Even if you do not use this Adaptation Plan Template or do not have an adaptation plan yet, you should be able to use the ‘including adaptation in your Green Plan’ resource to help guide what you should include in your Green Plan on climate change adaptation.

Adaptation Reporting Guidance

There are also areas of NHS reporting and requirements outside of the Green Plan which describe when and how to report on adaptation. The ‘including adaptation in your Green Plan’ resource also aims to summarise other regulatory reporting requirements and guidance that relate to adaptation including:

• The task-force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
• Annual reporting guidance for NHS commissioning organizations and NHS Trusts
• The Third Health and Care Adaptation Report published by GreenerNHS

Remember: this guidance is advice not produced by NHSE – you should always check your own statutory reporting requirements.

Further Guidance

For further guidance on Adaptation in the NHS, see the other resources and outputs from this project and beyond here on the weadapt website under the tag #NHSadapts.