A message to all Essex residents from Essex County Council Health & Social Care:

In advance of the predicted record-breaking temperatures over the next week, and as I said at yesterday’s County Council meeting, I am keen to mobilise the people of Essex.

We have many tens of thousands of people living on their own or in small households and how, through age or illness, are vulnerable. Many live in homes which offer little respite. The county council and other agencies are creating plans to meet the needs of those they know about, but there are far, far more whom we do not know.

We need to encourage everyone to think about the people who they know, or whom they don’t know but live nearby, and who might be vulnerable to extreme heat. There are many ways to help and by popping in, by encouraging them to have a drink, maybe by lending a fan or other cooling device, or even by inviting them round to your own, cooler property for a while.

I attach a short video which anyone is welcome to use and distribute (click on this link:Hot weather ); you may wish to create your own social media message. I have asked the Essex Wellbeing Service to be ready to take calls from people needing help or identifying where help is needed.

We have had too much heartbreak across the last two years. Excess deaths are already being reported across the county for reasons which are not entirely understood. Let’s create a movement that will truly save lives in the coming days.

Many thanks,

Cllr John Spence CBE

Cabinet Member for Health & Adult Social Care, Essex County Council, County Hall, Chelmsford