An extreme blast of cold weather is just hours away from hitting the UK, with the Met Office issuing an urgent health alert, coming into place from today. The forecaster announced it would come into place from noon.
The amber cold weather alert doesn’t affect all of England, but is confined to the North West, East Midlands, West Midlands, South West until January 12 at noon. It has been activated to predict “probable” cold weather impacts to health and social care providers.
The North East, Yorkshire and The Humber, East of England, London and South East remain under the yellow alert, which was issued at the end of last week.
But it also gives the vulnerable population a heads up of what’s to come, with an “observed increase in mortality across the nation”. It predicts an increase in people needing remote health care services.
The alert says: “Significant impacts are probable across the health and social care sector due to forecast weather conditions, including: observed increase in mortality across the population, particularly in the 65+ age group or those with certain underlying health conditions.
“But impacts may also be seen in younger age groups; increased demand for remote health care services likely; internal temperatures in care settings (e.g. hospitals, care homes and primary care settings) may fall below recommended threshold for clinical risk assessment.”
It recommends people try and maintain an indoor temperature of 18C and above, although it recognises it may be “challenging for some”.
“This will lead to increased risk of vulnerable people; staffing issues due to external factors (e.g. travel delays); other sectors may start to observe impacts (e.g. transport and energy),” it added.
