The Guardian reporter Jedidajah Otte has been speaking to parents and teachers across the UK about school closures this week due to the heatwave:
Jade, 31, a year one teacher at a London primary, said her school had closed on Monday for nursery, reception and year one, had closed at lunchtime for all other classes and would do the same on Tuesday, but would stay open for children of key workers and vulnerable families.
She said:
We have advised parents above year one that they should not bring their children in. In my class, seven out of 30 children turned up today.
I think it’s the right decision: our school building is Victorian, built in 1876, which is ill-equipped to deal with extreme weather.
Our headteacher measured the classroom temperatures on Friday and it was higher than the official Met reading, which shows that our building retains heat.
The children have been wilting the past week and I don’t think we can safely have all of them in school.
A father from Corby, Northamptonshire, told the Guardian his child’s secondary school was staying open despite the blistering heat.
He said:
Children still have to come in and in their normal uniform, except blazer and tie, but boys must wear trousers and have shirts tucked in. Parents have aired their concerns and asked for children to at least be able to wear their PE kit, which has their school logo on, but this has been rejected.
The father, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he feared such inflexibility and focus on discipline in such extreme conditions would affect children’s physical and mental health.
These schools now feel like military camps, with all the pressure that’s put on them to do well and obey the rules, even in this heat.
Jo Stanley, 44, a mother of two from Nottingham, said it was unfair to expect teachers to monitor and ensure children were safe and well throughout the school day in these temperatures.
I don’t think children should go to school when it’s this hot.
It’s not fair on the teachers to have to be responsible for so many children who could be getting too hot, that they’re drinking enough, putting enough sunscreen on.
She suggested that the UK should adapt the school day in the summer months to measures taken by governments in hotter parts of the world. The school of her children, aged seven and 10, had stayed open, she said, but she decided to keep them home after she had to abort the school run because she began feeling unwell and feared she would feel worse at pick-up time.
They say you shouldn’t even walk a dog in such heat because they can die. Children aren’t much different and it’s dangerous. Countries that have hot climates often have shorter school days and usually break up between June and September.
Another mother disagreed and felt schools should stay open, and criticised her child’s school for having told parents only on Monday morning that they would have to collect their children at noon, thus forcing pupils and their parents to walk through midday heat instead of keeping cool inside.
School closures, she said, could perhaps be easily accommodated by home-working or stay-at-home parents, but much less so by others, adding she felt frustrated by her school’s apparent assumption that parents had the time to look after their children during normal school hours.
Office workers stay at home to avoid transport disruption
Millions more people are working from home to avoid severe disruption to transport networks caused by soaring temperatures.
PA reports:
Road traffic and public transport usage dropped on Monday after people were urged to avoid unnecessary travel.
Network Rail said the number of passengers using major stations across Britain on Monday was around 20% down on a week ago.
Location technology firm TomTom said road congestion at 9am was lower in most UK cities than at the same time last week.
In London, congestion levels fell from 53% on July 11 to 42% on Monday.
In Birmingham they were down from 46% to 43%, in Manchester they decreased from 45% to 37%, and in Glasgow they dropped from 17% to 12%.
The figures reflect the proportion of additional time required for journeys compared with free-flow conditions.
The figures suggest that many office workers are resisting the lure of air conditioning as temperatures soar into the high 30s.
Some office air conditioning systems are struggling to operate due to intense temperatures. At the Guardian’s headquarters in Kings Cross, the landlord shut down the air conditioning because it cannot operate in the heat, with further shutdowns anticipated tomorrow.
Unions and the Confederation of Business and Industry are asking employers to relax dress codes to allow them to be more comfortable.
While there is a minimum legal working temperature, there is no maximum. The Health and Safety Executive tells employers that a “reasonable” temperature must be maintained to ensure workers’ “thermal comfort”.
The Trades Union Congress has called for a “new absolute maximum indoor temperature” of 30C, or 27C for those doing strenuous jobs – a level that may be breached in many workplaces on Monday and Tuesday.
A 16-year-old boy has died after getting into difficulty in Bray Lake, near Maidenhead, Berkshire.
PA reports:
Thames Valley police said officers were called at 11.45am on Monday and a body was located at just after 1.30pm, when he was pronounced deceased at the scene.
Supt Michael Greenwood, the LPA commander for Windsor and Maidenhead, said:
This is an absolute tragedy in which a young boy has died after getting into difficulty in the water of Bray Lake.
The boy’s next of kin have been notified and are being offered support at this extremely difficult and traumatic time.
My thoughts, and the thoughts of all of us at Thames Valley Police are with the boy’s family and his friends, and we would ask that their privacy is respected.
Ahead of an urgent question in the Commons tabled by Caroline Lucas, on the national heat emergency, the Green MP has shared this statement:
The government is turning up at this national extreme heat emergency with a watering can, when we need a giant fire hose.
We are seeing a total absence of leadership. The Prime Minister refuses to chair the Cobra meeting taking place today, and is instead filling his time with lavish parties at Chequers and juvenile photo-ops on an RAF fighter jet. Tory Ministers and MPs are branding Britons as “cowards” and “snowflakes” for taking precautions during the country’s first ever national heat emergency.
And as a result, the government’s utter lack of preparedness for this crisis has been laid bare. Where are the guidelines for schools? For the NHS? For employers?
The climate emergency is right here, right now, and it’s not going away any time soon – so we’re going to need to adapt. Yet the government has repeatedly failed to do so. Last year, the climate change committee warned found that only 5 of 34 sectors assessed by the committee had shown progress in the past two years. The adaptation committee chair, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, said that adaptation had been left “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”.
But we also have to address the cause and not just the symptoms. If we’re going to keep global temperatures in check, we can’t green-light new polluting oil & gas projects in the North Sea, and a climate-busting coal mine in Cumbria.
As the nation battles with extreme heat, putting lives and livelihoods at risk, our government is pouring yet more fuel on the flames, and walking away from the wreckage.
Surgeries cancelled because operating theatres are too hot
Denis Campbell
The extreme temperatures are forcing some hospitals in England to cancel surgery because operating theatres are too hot.
Miriam Deakin, the interim deputy chief executive of hospitals group NHS Providers, said:
The NHS estate is not built to cope with extreme weather. Over the past 48 hours we’ve heard that some trusts are having to scale back the number of planned surgeries as operating theatres are too hot.
She did not disclose how many or which trusts are experiencing that problem.
She added:
We’ve also heard that IT server rooms need additional cooling in buildings where the air conditioning is overstretched. Some trusts are working on contingency plans to reduce the amount of printing they do to lessen the strain on IT systems.
The heatwave represents “a real challenge” for NHS trusts, she said, especially with so much Covid infection around again just now.
Hospitals are using creative ways of helping staff cope with the heat, she said:
For example, in many trusts, staff are wearing cooler scrubs rather than formal uniforms. Trusts have bought up bottled water to give out to patients and staff, have ice cream vans onsite and hospital kitchens making ice lollies for their colleagues and patients.
Trusts are also mounting fans and installing industrial cooling units where possible, and considering the impact of the heatwave in their discharge assessment of patients.
The Green party has accused the government of failing to act on the climate crisis, which has contributed to a dangerous heatwave.
The Green party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:
This Conservative’s government inaction in the face of the climate emergency is costing lives both here in the UK and abroad.
For too long successive governments have had their head in the sand when it comes to the climate crisis. Boris Johnson may have talked up climate action before COP26, but over 12 years of this government the pace of change has been far too slow.
While the UK government announced carbon emissions reduction targets by 2035, it has since actually incentivised more oil and gas production in the North Sea and the climate change committee has said its current policies will not achieve net zero.
Not only have they done nowhere enough to bring down the carbon emissions that are causing this extreme weather but now, when confronted with potentially deadly heat, they offer next to nothing to support people through it. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson couldn’t even be bothered to turn up to a Cobra meeting on the situation.
We need politicians that recognise the impact the climate emergency is having on all of us, right here right now, and aren’t afraid of taking the decisions that will help us mitigate against the devastating consequences of this crisis.
The Conservatives should be focused on supporting vulnerable people through the heatwave while taking urgent action to reduce the impact of future extreme weather. They are showing an extreme dereliction of duty, and that is why we need a general election.
The Guardian’s health editor, Andrew Gregory, has a report on what heatwaves mean for the NHS:
British summer risks becoming even more difficult for the NHS to navigate than winter, the head of the NHS Confederation has warned.
Hospitals and ambulance trusts across the country are braced for a surge in demand for NHS services as a result of the heatwave this week, with some hospitals already cancelling outpatient appointments to prioritise urgent care.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said the health service will be “stretched to the maximum” over the next few days.
And he warned the combination of “outdated” health premises across the UK and “increasingly common” record temperatures sparking increased demand for care may see summer prove tricker for the NHS to cope with than winter.
He said:
The likelihood is that with climate change, these temperatures could become increasingly common and even an annual occurrence.
Without targeted support and adequate government long-term investment, the British summer risks becoming even more difficult for the NHS to navigate than winter.
Hospitals, GP surgeries and other NHS settings are doing all they can to stay open and continue seeing as many patients as possible despite the extreme temperature conditions. Despite this there is a risk that the heatwave will have a knock-on effect on the care that can be provided.
Some hospital and GP services may have to change where, when and how they deliver certain appointments where they have outdated premises that cannot be adapted appropriately for patients in this extreme weather, and this will include buying portable air conditioning units and fans for unsuitable premises.
Taylor issued a grave warning over the threat to the NHS this week:
The next few days will stretch the health service to the maximum.
Our buildings and estate are ill equipped to deal with these kinds of temperatures and a lack of capital investment in the NHS over the last ten years means we have very little resilience left to deal with crisis situations like this.
Sadly, despite the NHS’s best efforts the fact that the mercury is rising so dramatically will have an impact on care. Ambulances are getting even more callouts and some hospitals are having to pause outpatient appointments to prioritise urgent care.
NHS leaders are urging their communities to follow the latest public health advice and do all they can to stay safe, including avoiding being out in the sun during the day, drinking plenty of water, wearing a hat and sun cream and checking on vulnerable family, friends and neighbours.
Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, has some analysis on why summer heatwaves happen in the UK.
He said:
Summer heatwaves in the UK are usually caused by an extended period of dry, sunny conditions, usually associated with high pressure that snuffs out cloud formation. Because there is little soil moisture, the sun’s energy heats the ground and the air above rather than being used up evaporating water.
These conditions can be intensified by hot, arid winds blowing from continental Europe where heat and drought have been building over the summer and this will affect the UK early next week as a weather system to the west of Spain pushes this hot air northwards. Higher temperatures and drier soils due to human caused climate change are turning strong heatwaves into extreme or even unprecedented heatwaves.
Human caused climate change is intensifying heatwaves, droughts and flooding events. Heating from greenhouse gas emissions make the atmosphere warmer and more thirsty for water which can parch and scorch one region and deluge the larger amounts of moisture in storms elsewhere.
The extreme heat has resulted in “unprecedented peak demand” for water in recent days, Water UK said.
The industry body, which has members across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, said the “most intense demand” was across the south of England but that “pretty much all companies are seeing elevated demand at the moment”.
A Water UK spokesperson said:
Water companies are seeing unprecedented peak demand for water during this extreme hot weather event.
We are urging everyone to carefully consider the amount of water they are using at this time.
All water companies have been contacting their customers directly with information and advice to help them reduce their water usage.
