Met Office forecasts warm weather for UK in 10 day trend
The Met Office has now put five regions across England and Wales under an amber heat health alert, upgrading much of England from yellow – a lesser risk category. The forecaster, teamed with the UK Health Security Agency, identifies the heat risk category to the nation based on the conditions predicted. On Saturday, June 10, much of southern and central England will bake in a 30C Iberian blast, which will render it the hottest day of 2023 so far.
The alert, updated at around 1.30pm today, said: “Significant impacts are probable across the health and social care sector due to the high temperatures, including: observed increase in mortality across the population likely, particularly in the 65+ age group or those with health conditions.”
Among the factors to consider, health care providers may see a demand, it says, for remote care services, with care home providers warned that their temperature thresholds may be breached.
It continues: “The impact on ability of services to be delivered due to heat effects on workforce are possible and many indoor environments likely to be overheating.
“There is a risk to vulnerable people living independently in the community as well as in care settings; medicines management issues; staffing issues due to external factors (e.g. transport); cross system demand for temporary AC capacity exceeded possible and other sectors starting to observe impacts (e.g. travel delays).”
Which areas are under the amber alert?
The amber alert, also called an enhanced hot weather response, has been updated for the East Midlands, West Midlands, east of England, south east and south west. It comes into effect tomorrow at 9am until Monday, June 12 at 9am.
The areas remaining in the yellow alert system, which is a generic hot weather response, are North East, North West, Yorkshire and The Humber and London. It comes into effect at the exact same times.
Speaking about the weather and how it’s set to ramp up, the alert added: “Temperatures will increase widely in the coming days with winds coming from a more southerly direction. This brings an increased chance of heat-health alert criteria being met across all regions.
“With increasingly humid air and light winds through the weekend, overnight temperatures will be uncomfortable for many, with minimum temperatures widely being in the mid to high teens.”
While these alerts are made public, they are also sent to the chief executive of every health trust provider within the NHS commissioned care. Local and social care authorities are also sent copies.
The amber and yellow alerts are the first of their kind to be issued this year. This is because the service operates from June 1 to September 30 – covering the country’s generally warmer months.
But, if high temperatures are predicted outside of this period, an extraordinary heat health alert will be issued.
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