![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/08\/17\/557705.jpg\" "\\"A")
<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n A thermal imaging camera measures surface temperatures at the National Gallery during a heat wave in central London on Aug.13.
\n | REUTERS\n <\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s health service, which is paid for through taxation, is already struggling to keep up with demand due to outdated facilities and infrastructure after decades of underinvestment. In England, the NHS faces a \u00a315.9 billion ($21.5 billion) bill to make overdue fixes needed to return buildings to a minimum acceptable standard, according to its own disclosures. Wales and Scotland have maintenance backlogs of about \u00a31 billion each.<\/p>\n
In 2024, an independent review of the NHS found a \u00a337 billion shortfall in capital investment in England\u2019s health service, relative to spending in peer countries during the 2010s. That\u2019s resulted in disruption to services in \u201ccrumbling buildings,\u201d 20% of which predate the founding of the nationalized health service in 1948, the review found.<\/p>\n
As Britain\u2019s healthcare workers wait for upgrades, they\u2019re struggling to protect their patients.<\/p>\n
Fiona Brennan, a consultant anesthetist working in Cardiff, south Wales, says the conditions she experienced during Britain\u2019s June heat wave were \u201cfar worse\u201d than during the COVID pandemic of 2020.<\/p>\n
In the hottest week of June, she was part of a team carrying out radiology surgeries, which are procedures for patients suffering from cancer, stroke and other potentially life-threatening conditions. Surgeries are normally carried out in a room with less than 60% humidity and temperatures of about 20 degrees Celsius to reduce the risk of infection, says Brennan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were up to 27 C and humidity was really high,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were wearing lead coats, and that\u2019s a weight. It\u2019s heavy. I was literally sat dripping in sweat. It was absolutely miserable. I felt really sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
At those temperatures, basic procedures become much more difficult. Intravenous cannulas weren\u2019t sticking to one patient because of the sweat, Brennan said. \u201cEverything was peeling off\u201d and \u201cwe were just constantly having to keep looking at them and making sure they weren\u2019t slipping out. I think that alone is such a patient safety issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clare Wade, director of nursing for the surgery clinical board at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said in a statement that the hospital is looking at installing window film in heavily glazed buildings and improving air-conditioning availability in the worst-affected areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fully recognize that many colleagues worked in extremely difficult conditions during the recent period of exceptional heat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Less urgent operations and procedures were postponed to keep patients safe. At the end of June, the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust said that \u201cchallenges maintaining safe temperatures in some of our hospital theaters and certain facilities\u201d meant appointments had to be delayed.<\/p>\n
The Royal College of Physicians said doctors were experiencing \u201csevere, unsustainable pressure\u201d from heat. In one case, according to the group, a member said machinery used to treat cancer was failing due to the heat, as were the hospital\u2019s IT servers.<\/p>\n
Staff are working in buildings that are difficult to shade and ventilate, with blinds that are broken and windows that barely open, according to the Doctors\u2019 Association U.K.. Its June survey included reports of doctors who weren\u2019t able to switch off radiators even as temperatures soared above 30 C. Less than 5% of respondents said they had consistent access to air conditioning.<\/p>\n
Leah Hazard, a midwife working in Scotland, said her unit is windowless. \u201cMany hospitals in the NHS estate are not designed to have really efficient central ventilation,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the temperature in one of these hospitals rises from 25 C to 30 C, it\u2019s not just like things get a bit tougher. Everybody gets a lot sicker, everybody gets much more dehydrated, more stressed, more uncomfortable, so it\u2019s like a magnifying effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Midwives generally aren\u2019t free to control the temperature in the wards in which they work, and in some cases they\u2019re not even allowed to open windows or use fans, Hazard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need windows that open. We need fans and air-conditioning units,\u201d she said. But \u201ca lot of midwives and nurses are still being told that it\u2019s unprofessional to drink on the shop floor, to have water or a mug at the desk.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first year in which extreme heat has upended Britain\u2019s ability to care for its most vulnerable citizens.<\/p>\n
Jane Dennett-Thorpe, whose father Sid was dying in a specialist home for older people in Cambridge in August last year, said she was stunned by the temperatures he was expected to endure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was insanely hot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For more than a week, she sat with her father in a south-facing room worrying about how to keep him cool. The building had no fans or air conditioning, so she bought a fan herself from a local electronics store. Dennett-Thorpe, a civil servant who works in the energy sector, said that as a result, her final moments with her father were tainted by \u201cstress and discomfort\u201d that \u201cmade me not think about those 10 days as a peaceful passing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Extreme heat ultimately risks leaving medical professionals too unwell to look after patients, Hazard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff go off sick, or they burn out and they leave,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to have more periods of extreme heat in the coming years, then it would behoove the government and individual health boards to start planning for this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHorrific, horrendous, unbearable, unsafe.\u201d That\u2019s how medical professionals describe the impact of this year\u2019s heat waves on Britain\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[602,24433,1224,1998,5,6],"class_list":["post-104894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-climate-change","tag-heat-waves","tag-hospitals","tag-u-k","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117109284490367392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104894","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=104894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}