There is a 90 % probability of Heat-Health Alert criteria being met between 1200 on Tuesday 09 Aug and 1800 on Saturday 13 Aug in parts of England.

The Met office have put the London region under amber alert level with temperatures building day on day with prolonged sunny spells and light to moderate breeze.

During this time some actions to take:

• Ensure on very hot days, children do not take part in vigorous physical activity
• Ensure there are adequate supplies of cold drinking water and ice
• Provide children and parents/carers with advice e.g wearing loose, light coloured clothing, applying suncream and drinking more water than usual
• Support staff to remain fit and well during spells of hot weather. For example, ensuring they have regular breaks, and have access to cool and ventilated areas
• Encourage children playing outdoors to stay in the shade as much as possible
• Keep an eye out for children who may be less likely to cope with the heat than others, (this includes SEND children, children with long-term conditions, infants) and make sure they are able to keep cool

DfE guidance on how to support children and those in Early Years settings for teachers and professionals can be found here 

Health and safety regulations require employers to undertake risk assessment wherever there is a significant risk of harm to their employees and others e.g. prolonged exposure to heat such as the sun.

Although there is no maximum working temperature there is a requirement that temperature inside buildings shall be reasonable in accordance to the needs of the staff and service users etc.
There are many practical precautionary measures that can be introduced as part of a risk assessment to improve the working environment during spells of hot weather.

The risk assessment should cover Key Areas such as:

1. General arrangements for identifying staff/pupils with special needs
2. Outdoors Activities
3. Indoors Activities
4. Emergency Action if heat stress or heat exhaustion is suspected

Key documents to download and read: 

• Hot Weather Checklist 

• Waltham Forest Heatwave plan June 2022

• Heat health alerts comms toolkit

If you have any queries regarding the completion of this Risk Assessment and require advice please contact the Health and Safety Team healthandsafety@walthamforest.gov.uk.