{"id":104870,"date":"2026-08-17T04:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/104870\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T04:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:54:21","slug":"inhumane-uks-extreme-heat-pushes-nhs-staff-patients-to-limit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/104870\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Inhumane\u2019: UK\u2019s extreme heat pushes NHS staff, patients to limit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cHorrific, horrendous, unbearable, unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is how medical professionals describe the impact of this year\u2019s heatwaves on <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/britain?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Britain<\/a>\u2019s healthcare system, in response to a survey by the Doctors\u2019 Association UK.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In hospitals built for a cooler climate, staff are now dealing with patients too sweaty to receive intravenous drips, medication at risk of degrading in high temperatures and colleagues collapsing on the job with heat fatigue.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The past few months have revealed the extent to which Britain\u2019s healthcare system appears unprepared for the profound change in climate already under way. The fear now is that temperatures are rising too fast for the UK to adapt.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Britain\u2019s hospitals and care homes were set up \u201cwith a core assumption that the climate was going to be stable\u201d, said Nick Watts, the former chief sustainability officer of the National Health Service (NHS) in England. \u201cThat\u2019s just turned out to not be a good assumption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Andy Burnham meets the Met Office\u2019s chief forecaster, Dan Harris, in Exeter to discuss the UK\u2019s response to extreme heat, drought and wildfires on Friday. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9f49756c-7143-4aaa-b177-423c0c3eddb6_af4a4901.jpg\" title=\"Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Andy Burnham meets the Met Office\u2019s chief forecaster, Dan Harris, in Exeter to discuss the UK\u2019s response to extreme heat, drought and wildfires on Friday. Photo: AFP\"\/>Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Andy Burnham meets the Met Office\u2019s chief forecaster, Dan Harris, in Exeter to discuss the UK\u2019s response to extreme heat, drought and wildfires on Friday. Photo: AFPVulnerable to overheating<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Some 90 per cent of England\u2019s hospital buildings are vulnerable to overheating, according to the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. The upgrades needed \u201care pretty expensive,\u201d said Watts, who now runs the Centre for Sustainable Medicine, a research institute in Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHorrific, horrendous, unbearable, unsafe.\u201d That is how medical professionals describe the impact of this year\u2019s heatwaves on Britain\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,43915,43910,29057,4327,43913,43914,15743,43911,43912],"class_list":["post-104870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-britain","tag-cardiff-and-vale-university-health-board","tag-doctors-association-uk","tag-extreme-heat","tag-london-fire-brigade","tag-londons-underground","tag-matt-lee","tag-national-health-service","tag-nick-watts","tag-uk-health-alliance-on-climate-change"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117109067940767889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}