{"id":460789,"date":"2026-05-26T12:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/460789\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:45:10","slug":"amber-heat-health-alert-issued-for-the-south-west-by-ukhsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/460789\/","title":{"rendered":"Amber heat health alert issued for the South West by UKHSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UKHSA’s Amber alert meant there was an increased risk of deaths, particularly among those aged over 65 with health conditions. There may also be impacts on younger age groups.<\/p>\n

The alert covers the south-west and west of England including Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.<\/p>\n

An Amber alert also meant a likely increased demand, external<\/a> on all health and social care services.<\/p>\n

BBC South West’s meteorologist David Braine said Bude had reached 31C (88F) on Monday, beating the previous record for Cornwall at Treknow of 28.5C (83F) on 25 May 2012.<\/p>\n

At Chivenor a maximum temperature of 30C (86F) was recorded for Devon on Monday, which had beaten the previous record at Rumleigh near Bere Alston of 28.2C (82F) on 24 May 1989.<\/p>\n

Tipton said: “This is the worst time of the year because the air temperature can shoot up into the 30s but the water temperature is still pretty wintery, about 13C.<\/p>\n

“Once air temperatures get above 30C we see a 70% increase in the risk of drowning.<\/p>\n

“The sudden fall in skin temperature evokes what we called many years ago the cold shock syndrome.”<\/p>\n

The professor advised people who got into trouble to float to live.<\/p>\n

“Fight the instinct to thrash about, stay absolutely still then roll onto your back.<\/p>\n

“Get your head back and scull a little until you’ve got your breathing under control.<\/p>\n

“After 90 seconds you will have gone past the most dangerous part of immersion which claims 60% of the lives we see lost in cold water in the UK.”<\/p>\n

If anyone saw someone in danger they should ‘phone, float, throw’ he added.<\/p>\n

“Phone the emergency services, tell the person to float and throw them something to help them float if possible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UKHSA’s Amber alert meant there was an increased risk of deaths, particularly among those aged over 65…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-460789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}