This summer has provided some stark evidence of why we need to take climate resilience seriously across West Sussex.
At this week’s meeting of West Sussex County Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee, I had the opportunity to question senior representatives from South East Coast Ambulance Service about the pressures they experienced during periods of extreme heat this summer.
What we heard should be a wake-up call.
During the hot weather, demand for ambulance services increased significantly. SECAmb has reported that during the May heatwave it experienced a rise of around 30% in 999 calls over the busiest weekend. Then, between 22 June and 12 July, when temperatures regularly exceeded 30°C, its teams handled almost 78,000 calls – 16% more than during the equivalent period in 2025.
At the height of the pressure in June, SECAmb declared a critical incident, with hot weather contributing to additional demand across the health and care system.
But some of the most striking evidence at our scrutiny meeting concerned what was happening here in Worthing.
We heard from Nicky Relf, SECAmb’s Head of Operations for the Worthing area, about the effect extreme heat had on patients and on Worthing Hospital.
She explained that some wards had to close because they had become too hot, adding further pressure to ambulance handovers. After 25 years working in the ambulance service, she told the committee that this was not something she had experienced having to work through before.
That really brought home to me that climate adaptation isn’t something we can regard as a problem for decades into the future.
It is happening now.
Extreme heat isn’t simply an environmental issue. It’s a public health issue, an NHS issue and an emergency-resilience issue.
We need a countywide response
That’s why I raised with SECAmb the need for a genuinely joined-up approach to climate resilience across West Sussex.
Climate change doesn’t stop at the Worthing boundary, and neither should our response.
West Sussex County Council, our district and borough councils, Public Health, the NHS, ambulance and emergency services and other partners all have different responsibilities. But extreme weather affects all of us, and there is a strong case for those organisations planning together.
I was therefore pleased to hear SECAmb representatives welcome joined-up working and, importantly, emphasise the need to prevent people becoming seriously unwell during periods of extreme heat.
For me, prevention has to be a major part of our response.
That can mean looking at practical measures such as increasing trees and shade in our towns, improving access to drinking water, considering cool spaces for vulnerable residents, making public buildings more resilient to extreme temperatures and ensuring our health and emergency services are properly prepared for heatwaves.
Turning the evidence into action
There was another important development at the scrutiny committee which could help connect this work with Public Health.
During our discussion of West Sussex’s Public Health budget, I asked for the results of the County Council’s Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan consultation to be reviewed by Public Health once the consultation closes.
I intend to use that consultation to put forward practical proposals for improving heat resilience and protecting people’s health.
It has now been recorded as an action from the committee that the consultation responses will be reviewed and consideration given to whether preventative public-health measures emerging from that work could be supported through the Public Health budget.
That doesn’t mean funding has already been allocated to any particular proposal. But it creates an important opportunity to look seriously at how preventative investment could help protect residents and reduce pressure on our public services as extreme weather becomes a greater challenge.
An opportunity to work together
I’ve been making the case for ambitious climate adaptation work across West Sussex because I believe the scale of the challenge requires us to work across council boundaries and across organisations.
What we heard from our ambulance service this week adds important evidence to that argument.
This isn’t about frightening people. It’s about recognising what our public services are already experiencing and preparing properly for the future.
There is a real opportunity to bring councils, Public Health, the NHS, emergency services and communities together and build a more resilient West Sussex.
We should grasp it.
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