NHS Scotland joins national study to strengthen Scotland’s resilience to climate change
NHS Scotland is proud to be taking part in a pioneering national study bringing together major infrastructure owners, operators and public bodies to better understand how climate change could affect the essential services people across Scotland rely on every day.
Commissioned through the Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland (CRIS) Forum, the research will look at how Scotland’s critical infrastructure systems are connected and how climate-related disruption in one area, such as energy, water, transport or communications, could have knock-on effects across others. The study is believed to be one of the first of its kind globally to be jointly commissioned by multiple infrastructure owners and operators.
For healthcare, this matters because our services do not operate in isolation. Hospitals, health centres and community services are all part of a wider interconnected infrastructure, all of which needs to operate together effectively to serve our population. Understanding those connections will help NHS Scotland better anticipate where disruption could affect healthcare and strengthen how we plan and prepare for a changing climate.
NHS Scotland’s contribution
Via Public Services Delivery Scotland, NHS Scotland is a co-funder of the research, supporting this wider collaborative approach to understanding Scotland’s interconnected climate risks.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – also a co-funder – is contributing operational healthcare expertise and helping to shape the research and its outputs. Its involvement will bring a practical health service perspective to the work, while enabling healthcare to learn from the experience and expertise of organisations responsible for other critical infrastructure across Scotland.
The wider coalition includes organisations responsible for Scotland’s transport, energy, water and communications infrastructure, including Network Rail, Scottish Water, ScotRail, Openreach, SSEN Distribution and Transmission, Transport Scotland and the Met Office, with support from the Scottish Government.
Building a clearer picture of shared risk
Evelin Bocanegra Rios, Sustainability Manager (Adaptation and Resilience) at Public Services Delivery Scotland said; “The benefit of working together is the ability to look beyond risks facing individual organisations and get a fuller understanding of the bigger picture.
“A hospital building, for example, may itself be resilient to a particular climate event, but disruption to the power, water, communications or transport networks it relies on could still affect its ability to deliver services.”
The study will aim to create the first shared register of how Scotland’s infrastructure systems depend on one another, identify areas where disruption could have the greatest consequences and examine how those impacts could spread across interconnected networks.
Evelin adds, “For NHS Scotland, this can provide stronger evidence to inform climate adaptation and resilience planning, helping to improve coordination, better understand vulnerabilities, prioritise action and investment, and ultimately protect the continuity of healthcare services for the communities that depend on them.”
Next steps:
The National Centre for Resilience, hosted by the University of Glasgow, is managing the process and coordinating delivery on behalf of the funding partners.
The research will move into delivery through a specialist supplier, with the work expected to run for around 12 months.
More information can be found on the University of Glasgow website.
For more information about the Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland Forum, please visit the Adaptation Scotland website.