Hospitals are having to adopt winter-style emergency measures, including turning away patients through being busy, as the NHS struggles to cope with illnesses caused by the heatwave in the UK.

Patients are being treated in corridors, and queues of ambulances are building up outside A&E units in what hospital bosses say are unprecedented scenes for the summerwhich is usually the quietest time of year for the NHS.

Large numbers of people are falling ill with heatstroke, dehydration, exhaustion and breathing problems, as well as experiencing falls – incidents all linked to the record-breaking temperatures since June. The health service was having the busiest summer on record, said hospital chiefs and senior doctors.

Hospitals are being forced to lay on extra beds to admit people needing to be treated as emergencies, while many GP surgeries and ambulance crews are also facing an unusually high demand for their services.

Malcolm Tunnicliff, an A&E consultant at King’s College hospital in London, said: “It’s the busiest summer we’ve ever had. Usually the summer is the NHS’s quieter time, but not this year. There’s been no respite this year.

Unions say action needed to protect UK workers in heatwave Read more

“At 10pm on Tuesday we had a queue of ambulances outside the A&E that was the same length as we would get in February, and lots of people waiting to get into a bed. We’re seeing a lot of older people who have become dehydrated because they weren’t drinking enough or because their diuretic drugs [which increase urination] are making them dehydrated. Dehydration is also leading to mainly older people having faints, collapses and also becoming more prone to infections.”

Many hospitals, including those in central London near the pubs and clubs in the West End, have also been dealing with larger than usual numbers of intoxicated people. “Some are just very drunk, others have fallen over and hurt themselves. This is happening seven days a week, not just at the weekend,” said Tunnicliff.

A number of hospitals have been treating higher than usual numbers of older people living in care homes who have become dehydrated, many of whom need inpatient care.

Paramedics last week set up drips and looked after patients on trolleys in the corridor of one of London’s biggest hospitals, while hospitals in the north-west and west Midlands also had to temporarily divert emergency patients to nearby A&E units.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Weymouth, Dorset, in August 2018. Hospitals are reporting cases of fainting and collapses due to dehydration. Photograph: Tom Corban/Rex/Shutterstock

The number of people visiting a family doctor in England in recent weeks because of heatstroke has reached the highest level for five years, according to figures collated by the Royal College of GPs’ research and surveillance centre.

Richard Mitchell, chief executive of Sherwood Forest NHS trust, in the East Midlands, said the organisation had experienced “a record-breaking summer for emergency care attendances”. He added: “Our increase has been particularly from patients presenting with minor injuries and illnesses, and conditions such as respiratory problems, which are linked to the long periods of hot weather.”

So far in August the trust hastreated an average of 435 patients a day, 11% more than the 388 a day it had during August 2017. Similarly, its average of 463 daily attendances in July was 8% up on the 426 it recorded in the same month a year earlier; in June there was a 5% year-on-year rise, from 417 to 440.

“Talking to colleagues, this position is replicated across the NHS,” Mitchell added. Demand for care had been so great that, for the first time, his trust had to keep using the extra beds it opened last winter to cope with the pressures of the cold months. Those beds would normally have been kept aside over the quiet summer months.

Another trust chief executive, who asked not to be named, said, comparing the situation to the pressure of the worst winter months: “To be honest, I didn’t think it could get any worse.”

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said: “The increased pressure we’ve seen in many places over the summer is a symptom of the health and care system running at boiling point all year round. The NHS is struggling to cope and that shows just how important it will be to invest the right amount of extra NHS funding in frontline services like A&E capacity”.



Kevin Brandstatter, lead officer for health at the GMB union, which represents 35,000 NHS staff, said: “The NHS is in a summer crisis very nearly as serious as the winter crisis.”

Shelagh Smith, chief operating officer at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust, north-east London, said: “We are certainly busier than usual with higher numbers of patients than usual for this time of year. We’re seeing a whole range of heat-related conditions, including sunstroke and heat exhaustion. Of particular concern are those older patients who are dehydrated and delirious. We have been admitting high numbers.”

Helen Stokes-Lampard, professor and chair of the RCGP, said: “With British summers only expected to get hotter it is crucial that the NHS is better prepared for heatwaves in the future so that we don’t find ourselves facing two seasonal crises a year, one of which already threatens to destabilise the entire health service each winter.”

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives said that while some of England’s 10 regional NHS ambulance trusts had had “slightly higher demand than they would usually expect during an average British summer”, in general the association had not seen “significant strain” on the ambulance serviceas a whole.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: “This summer has been exceptionally hot with NHS staff doing an excellent job to respond and meet demand during the heatwave.

“NHS England has written to local health providers to remind them of the action they should be taking in line with the national heatwave plan, published in June, and local NHS services are taking these steps as well as issuing guidance to the public as appropriate.”