Hospitals vow to improve conditions after heatwave

An NHS trust has pledged to improve conditions after temperatures on some hospital wards soared to 35C during the recent heatwave.

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Surrey and Berkshire, is exploring ways to make its older buildings more resilient to extreme heat.

James Clarke, the trust's chief strategy officer, said the high temperatures experienced in recent weeks had been "tough" for patients and "not comfortable".

During the June heatwave, several hospitals across Hampshire and South Central Ambulance Service declared critical incidents as the extreme weather put additional pressure on services.

The trust runs Wexham Park Hospital in Slough and Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, both in Berkshire, as well as Frimley Park Hospital in Camberley, Surrey.

Speaking during a trust meeting on Friday, Clarke said there was no air conditioning in some buildings and temperatures of 30-35C were recorded inside some wards.

He said the trust had focused on protecting critical infrastructure, including operating theatres, IT server rooms and environmental control systems, to ensure services could continue running safely.

"There is a load of lessons that we've learned from [the heatwave] about how [to] make old buildings more resilient," he said.

"You can't just plug in loads of portable air conditioning units everywhere – which is what people like to do – because we just don't have the power [or] resilience to be able to do that."

The trust has set out plans to upgrade its estate as part of its 2025-2028 green plan, which aims to make buildings more resilient to extreme weather while reducing carbon emissions by 50% over the next five years.