London learning from the response to Red Alert for Extreme Heat
Dear Colleagues,
The rare Red Extreme Heat Warning for London occurred from Wednesday, 24 June to Friday, 26 June 2026.
The Met Office and UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) initially enacted the red alert at 9:00 am on Wednesday, 24 June. It was later extended until 9:00 pm on Friday, 26 June, the Red alert marked the first time in UK history that the highest heat alert was extended for three consecutive days in June.
The NHS in London faced severe operational strain, culminating in unprecedented emergency call volumes, system pressures for all trust types, critical infrastructure failures, and hospital overcrowding.
Collaboration across NHS England London, ICBs, providers, UKHSA and LAS in London overall worked well. In readiness for further potential periods of extreme heat, we are asking health providers to complete questionnaire below. This will be used to further enhance our future response.
The agreed NHS England London response strategy for extreme heat was to:
- Preserve and protect the lives of all staff and patients involved in the incident
- Mitigate and minimise the immediate and future impact of the incident/event on the wider NHS
- Ensure any community or groups (staff or patients) who may be disproportionally impacted by the scenario are considered
- Inform the public and maintain public confidence
- Ensure sufficient assets are available to manage both the incident and maintain core activity levels to national standards
- Facilitate the early return to normal operational status
A rapid data collection of learning is being undertaken due to predicted further significant temperatures over the summer, including in the next week. We would greatly appreciate your completion of the questionnaire via the link included. We are keen to obtain your answers as early as possible to be able to address any learning for this next period.
London learning from the response to Red Alert for Extreme Heat – Fill in form
This survey will remain open until 1700 2nd July
If you have any questions or queries, please reach out to the regional EPRR team via your ICB EPRR lead.