The heatwave gripping the United Kingdom is piling pressure on the National Health Service, with the extreme temperatures hitting both patients and the buildings meant to care for them. According to the coverage, two things are happening at the same time, with a surge in people falling ill in the heat coming just as hospital buildings and the equipment inside them struggle to cope with conditions they were never designed for.
NHS England said that tens of thousands of people have sought advice for heat exhaustion over the last couple of days. Babies, small children and older people, along with those who have long-term conditions such as diabetes and heart conditions, are described as much more vulnerable to heat exhaustion, adding to the demand that the health service is already trying to manage.
At the same time, the heat has begun to affect the hospitals themselves. A critical incident was declared at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth after the chiller units in its on-site data centre overheated. With patient records and other information stored digitally, the failure of those systems was described as causing chaos for staff trying to keep services running.
The disruption was felt elsewhere too. According to the report, there were no working MRI scanners across the Norwich sites of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, and as a result hundreds of appointments have been cancelled. Medical staff said they were also facing problems with testing in laboratories, with kidney dialysis and with cancer treatments, all of which depend on equipment that has been struggling in the heat.
Conditions inside the wards have been difficult as well. One doctor was told to turn off all non-essential equipment, including lights, to ease the strain. The Royal College of Physicians said staff and patients were really struggling in overcrowded and overheated buildings, noting that few sites seem to have air conditioning and describing the conditions as awful.
The combination of rising demand and failing infrastructure has left the NHS facing challenges on several fronts at once. With buildings and equipment that were not built for such extreme temperatures, hospitals have been forced to declare critical incidents, cancel appointments and limit what they can offer, even as more people fall ill in the heat and turn to the health service for help.