New heatwave warnings could miss vulnerable older people who aren’t online

A new heatwave email alert system to warn about the dangers of hot weather could be missed by vulnerable older people who are not online, a charity has warned.

Alerts will be sent out via email when temperatures get hot enough to be dangerous, amid concern over the impact of increasingly warm summers.

Three different alert levels will be sent to members of the public who sign up to the system, with the lowest yellow informing about temperatures that are only likely to impact the most vulnerable people, including over-65s.

But Dennis Reed from charity Silver Voices said there was a risk they could be missed by older people who may not be online.

“It’s just another facet of the isolation of older people when everything is done through the internet and digital communication,” he said. “And this could obviously be a tragic example, if certain older people don’t pick up any warnings.

“It does need to be thought through as to how we protect people from these increasingly high temperatures.”

The alerts will also be sent to public and health and social care professionals, particularly those working with at-risk groups, with the information expected to be disseminated via the news and social media.

They will give people advice about how to stay cool, and what times the hot weather is expected to peak, based on assessments by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Met Office.

Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, the director of public health at Lancashire county council, pushed back on suggestions that the new alert system was an example of the nanny state.

“It’s about us being aware and following the signs and specifically about health impacts of heat waves,” he told the BBC. “We’ve seen that being prepared during the pandemic was really real and important, and this will be bigger than that, if it happens.”

The alert system will be voluntary and only sent out by those who sign up via the UKHSA’’s weather health alerting system platform.

Yellow alerts may be issued during weather which could affect those who are particularly vulnerable, including over-65s, while amber alerts indicate weather that is likely to have a broader impact.

The highest alert, red, will be issued when there is a significant risk to life for even the healthy population.

There were around 3,000 more deaths than usual among the over-65s during last year’s record-breaking heat, which saw temperatures hit 40C, according to a report from the UKHSA and the Office for National Statistics.

“Last year saw record high temperatures across England and evidence shows that heatwaves are likely to occur more often, be more intense and last longer in the years and decades ahead,” said Dr Agostinho Sousa, head of extreme events and health protection at the UKHSA. “It is important we are able to quantify the likely impacts of these heatwaves before they arrive to prevent illness and reduce the number of deaths.”