Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has written to health leads in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland calling for urgent action to protect patients and healthcare professionals from unsafe temperatures in NHS workplaces.
The letters follow DAUK’s survey of the lived experiences of healthcare professionals across the UK during the heatwave in the week commencing 22 June 2026.
As health is devolved, DAUK has shared the findings with each of the nations’ governments.
Dr Matt Lee, DAUK sustainability lead, said: “We are asking the governments across the UK to listen to the frontline experiences shared through our survey and take action now, so that patients and healthcare workers are not subjected to these conditions again.”
Extreme heat
“Patients should never be left in dangerously hot clinical environments and staff should not be expected to make complex decisions or deliver emergency care in conditions that leave them struggling to function.
“Extreme heat is becoming a recurring threat to health, and our NHS infrastructure needs to be adapted accordingly.
“We cannot wait for the next heatwave before taking action.”
In the letter to the devolved governments, DAUK has called for urgent measures:
Urgent measures
- A legal maximum safe working temperature for hospitals and GP surgeries, in line with the UKHSA’s recommendations for safe working temperatures for inpatient settings.
- Hannah Spencer MP has a second reading of her Maximum Workplace Temperature Bill on the 16th October, and we strongly encourage cross Governmental and Cross-Party support for this bill.
- Urgent investment in passive and active cooling mechanisms, such as air conditioning, to provide the ability to all healthcare settings to reduce air temperatures to safer working temperatures.
- Urgent investment in insulation and energy efficiency, to provide more consistent temperatures year-round.
- Encourage employers to treat high air temperatures as significant health risks to staff and provide appropriate rest, cooling and hydration facilities.
Public health threat
DAUK has also urged the governments to take an accelerated programme of high impact climate crisis education and action, and to treat climate change as the number one threat to public health
- Deliver an urgent, public health campaign on the relationship between climate change and health.
- Accelerate decarbonisation targets and include a target of ensuring every health facility has solar energy installations, such as solar car parks, to mitigate climate change and offset increased energy requirements and costs due to air conditioning.
- Accelerate the restoration of nature to rapidly expand greenspaces around healthcare facilities to mitigate against heatwaves and other extreme weather events.
Dr Lee urged the devolved governments to ensure that lessons from this summer’s heatwaves are acted upon rather than forgotten as temperatures fall.
Health crisis
He said: “The climate crisis is a health crisis, and healthcare systems need to be prepared for the health impacts we are already seeing.
“We cannot accept a situation where the next heatwave produces another set of heartbreaking accounts from staff doing everything they can to care for patients in environments that are unsafe.
“Our survey provides a clear warning and we need UK governments to turn that warning into action.”
“DAUK is ready to work with the devolved governments and healthcare organisations to develop solutions that protect patients and staff during future periods of extreme heat.”
Heatwave survey
A total of 1,111 NHS staff responded to the survey. The findings painted a stark picture of the conditions faced by patients and staff during the heatwaves.
Among the key findings:
- 94.1 per cent reported no, or only partially working, air conditioning in their main clinical area, with fewer than five per cent reporting air conditioning throughout their area.
- 83.3 per cent described their workplace as very hot or dangerously hot, with 42 per cent describing it as dangerously hot.
- 68.3 per cent said the heat had affected patient care and safety.
- 86.9 per cent said they or their colleagues had felt unwell because of the heat.
- 89.8 per cent said they would support a legal maximum workplace temperature for healthcare facilities.
Read the survey findings in full.
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