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NHS staff and patients are being exposed to unsafe conditions during the current heatwave with reports of overheating, dehydration and disruption to care, a survey by the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has found.
DAUK’s rapid survey of NHS workers found that more than four in five respondents described their workplace as very hot or dangerously hot. Two-thirds said the heat had affected patient care or safety.
Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff have described patients becoming dehydrated, staff feeling faint, temperatures in clinical rooms becoming unsafe, delays to care, theatre disruption, and difficulty concentrating in the extreme heat.
DAUK has so far received 389 responses, and initial analysis of the first 377 responses found:
- 94 per cent of respondents reported no or only partial working air conditioning in their main clinical area
- More than four out of five (81 per cent) of respondents said their workplace was very hot or dangerously hot
- Two-thirds (68 per cent) of respondents said heat had affected patient care or safety
- 86 per cent of respondents said they or colleagues had felt unwell because of the heat
- Almost nine out of 10 (89 per cent) of respondents said they would support a legal maximum workplace temperature
Where respondents supplied a temperature reading, the median reported temperature was 32C. Nearly one in four temperature reports were 35C or above.
DAUK described the early findings as ‘shocking but not surprising’, saying that overheating in NHS workplaces must be treated as a patient safety issue, not just a comfort issue.
Dr Matt Lee, DAUK sustainability lead, said: “Our survey confirms a worrying pattern across the NHS.
“Doctors and other NHS staff are describing wards, clinics and emergency departments that are simply too hot to work in safely.
“Staff are feeling faint, patients are dehydrated and people are being expected to deliver complex clinical care in conditions that would not be tolerated in almost all other workplaces.
“It’s shocking that colleagues and patients are having to endure these conditions, but sadly not surprising.”
Anonymised survey responses included:
- “Fans are not enough. Windows that open a sliver are not good enough. I cannot function in this heat and patient safety is affected.”
- “The patients are also suffering. I had two patients with new acute kidney injuries today that were at least in part due to dehydration from the heat.”
- “Sweat was dripping off me onto a patient. Truly embarrassing. A colleague collapsed and needed time out.”
- “Rewriting a drug chart took 40 minutes whereas it would normally take 10 as we couldn’t focus.”
DAUK is calling for:
- Legal maximum safe working temperatures for hospitals and GP surgeries
- Urgent investment in air conditioning and cooling mechanisms in hospitals
- Urgent investment in insulation and energy efficiency upgrades in hospital infrastructure so that temperatures remain constant all year round
- Standardised and transparent process for healthcare professionals to report high working temperatures
- Local plans for enhancing safe resting and cooling periods during hot temperature working, including cold water drinking facilities
- Urgent investment in urban and rural green space enhancement due to the impacts on local cooling and decarbonisation
- An accelerated focus on decarbonisation, with the climate crisis being treated as the number one threat to the health of the UK public, including an urgent public health education campaign on the impacts of climate change on health
Dr Lee said: “NHS infrastructure is wholly ill-equipped to deal with the heatwaves that we are regularly experiencing, and patients and staff are suffering
“The NHS has to prepare for heat as a routine safety risk, not an occasional inconvenience.
“This week the Met Office modelled future heatwaves within our lifetimes peaking at 45C due to climate change.
“Our current heatwaves are already fatal, these would be catastrophic and action must be taken now to mitigate this.”
“The climate crisis is a health crisis.”
Notes to editors
The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) is the voice of frontline doctors. Run by volunteer NHS doctors, it advocates for the medical profession and the wider NHS.
DAUK conducted a rapid voluntary survey of NHS workplace heat conditions during the June 2026 heatwave.
At the time of writing, DAUK had received 389 responses. The initial figures above are based on the first 377 responses analysed.
Respondents included doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, managers, administrative staff and other NHS workers. Doctors made up 298 of the first 377 analysed responses. Free text responses are anonymous. Quotes may be lightly trimmed for length.
The survey remains open. DAUK will publish a fuller report and share the findings with the Department of Health and Social Care early next week.
For more information and interview requests, please contact Andy Mann, DAUK press officer, on 07399 164557 or email andymannpr@gmail.com