Week 101: Under the heat dome
This is not normal. It’s been a week of heat. Too hot to sleep. Too hot to cook. Too hot for the office air con to work. Too hot to think.
The couple days of anxious waiting to see if schools would close brought back painful flashbacks of the start of the Covid 19 pandemic. And then when many of them closed — partially or fully — the parents in our teams were once again back to juggling childcare and working from home.
Heat is a public health issue. The London Ambulance Service had its busiest ever day. Several hospitals declared critical incidents, with their equipment struggling, or a surge of incoming patients.
I’m worried that these heatwaves will become more prevalent and prolonged. I’m angry that the global warming we were warned about has come to pass.
What does this mean for NHS digital services?
Sustainability was added to our design principles in 2023. Defra have gone a step further and added it as a 15th service standard point, which may become a government-wide thing. Good.
We should be thinking more about energy use and efficiency, perhaps time-shifting compute-heavy tasks to when the electric grid is cleanest. And yes, this means AI too.
Beyond that, is there a need for digital services to directly support people in a heatwave? To help work out how best to cope with the temperatures, or to find cool public spaces for some temporary relief?
I don’t have the answers, but I know that it is hot, and this issue cannot be ignored.
It’s Sunday and my flat is finally below 30 degrees.