Currently, approximately 90 per cent of hospital buildings are vulnerable to overheating, which severely compromises patient care, particularly for vulnerable children with chronic conditions like asthma or diabetes, as well as other high-risk patients.
The projects, being led by led by Dr Chengzhi Peng, a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science have been designed to solve the issue as part of the foundational, strategic actions of the Climate-Health-Resilience Research Network (CHARRN), a newly funded Faculty Research Network in the Faculty of Social Sciences.
The first study, ‘Heat-resilient paediatric care’, is a 10-month NIHR Development Award project, addressing the threat heat poses to the UK’s NHS children's hospitals and aims to achieve a heat-resilient UK children’s hospital system by 2050. Overheating incidents have increased by 53 per cent since 2016/17.
A second project, funded by the Grantham Amplification Fund, is a nine-month pilot with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals focusing on high-risk zones such as surgical wards, drug storerooms, and critical IT centres. Researchers will conduct detailed energy and thermal comfort modelling to establish sustainable methods for dealing with heat.
Both projects will use data-intensive computer models to predict how NHS hospitals and care facilities will perform during increasingly extreme heatwaves, building on Dr Peng’s previous work mapping heat risk in housing and care homes.
The studies will be supported by the final project "Qualtrics e-TSV (QUIET)" which will survey occupants of both hospitals to collect real time feedback, validating the complex, computational research against the feelings of the real people it impacts.
Dr Chengzhi Peng, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science in the School of Architecture and Landscape and CHARRN said: “This research is essential for reversing the alarming trend of NHS overheating incidents. Critical to the success of the research is a human-centred approach, involving extensive co-design and engagement with frontline staff, patients representatives, and public health advocates to ensure interventions are clinically safe, operationally practical, and culturally acceptable.
“By generating this robust, interdisciplinary evidence now, the ultimate long-term impact is achieving a heat-resilient UK NHS by 2050 that significantly reduces operational vulnerabilities and degradation of care quality.”
CHARRN was established to address the critical nexus between climate change, health disparities, and socioenvironmental resilience.