Lib Dems call to heatproof the NHS
11th August 2025
UK: With an increasing number of heat related deaths amongst older people, the Liberal Democrat party has called on the UK government to ensure all care homes are air conditioned.
House of Commons Library research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that there were close to 1,000 excessive heat deaths in healthcare settings last year.
The Lib Dems insist that heatwaves pose a serious public health threat with older people and those suffering from health conditions particularly at risk from extreme heat.
The research found that an estimated 1,311 people died due to excessive heat in 2024. Almost 500 people died in care homes and over 470 died in hospitals. In the five years from 2018 to 2023, there was a 145% increase in deaths due to excess heat for people aged 65+.
House of Commons Library research also revealed a staggering rise in the number of ‘overheating incidents’ in NHS buildings. In 2023/24, there were 4,451 NHS overheating incidents, a near 50% increase on 2016/17’s figure of 2,980, the first year that the data was recorded. An NHS overheating incident refers to a situation where the daily maximum temperature in an occupied ward or clinical area within an NHS hospital or healthcare facility exceeds 26°C. A recent report from the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change also found that 90% of NHS buildings in England are vulnerable to overheating.
The Lib Dems are pressing the Government to urgently prepare the country for more extreme weather by “heatproofing the NHS”, together with a new legal requirement that all care homes provide air conditioning or alternative cooling systems, to ensure temperatures do not risk the lives of vulnerable occupants.
It insists that their party would establish a new “crumbling hospitals taskforce” to protect patients from deteriorating, unsafe and dangerously hot NHS buildings. The taskforce would coordinate with hospitals to drive down the costs of procuring new ventilation and air conditioning, and develop a strategy to guarantee “cool wards” for vulnerable patients in every hospital, as part of its work to fix the NHS maintenance backlog.
This follows the Party’s call for the Government to open up community “cool hubs” in public spaces with air conditioning, such as gyms, to provide relief for vulnerable people in summer heatwaves.
