As the UK nears the end of another record-breaking heatwave, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has spoken out repeatedly this week across the media on behalf of members and patients, using our voice to call for government action on climate change.
Our media work over the past few days has seen the RCP’s messages reach a wide audience, with more than 800 pieces of coverage across national and regional print, broadcast and online, including widespread reporting in national newspapers, and more than 140 broadcast mentions. Senior clinical voices from the college have been prominent throughout, with RCP leaders interviewed across major outlets including BBC News, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC Radio 5 Live, LBC and Sky News, ensuring that the frontline experiences of physicians are heard at a national level.
Putting our members at the centre of the conversation, the RCP has highlighted stark testimony from physicians across the UK describing an NHS struggling to cope with sustained high temperatures. Doctors have reported ‘awful’ conditions in overcrowded wards, with some hospital wards reaching temperatures of up to 35°C and vulnerable patients presenting with dehydration and collapse.
These concerns have been widely echoed and amplified through national media reporting, which has reinforced the RCP’s warning that the NHS is not equipped for extreme heat. Coverage has highlighted clinicians’ accounts of wards without air conditioning, staff ‘really struggling’, and care environments described as ‘unfit to cope’, alongside reports of disruption to services during the heatwave, including equipment and IT failures and hospitals declaring critical incidents.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, Professor Mumtaz Patel, RCP president, described the impact on staff and patients: ‘Many patients are already vulnerable, with complex comorbidities, and our systems are not designed to manage in this heat. We have to tackle the root causes of this.’
One RCP member, a resident doctor working in northwest England, highlighted that the effects of the climate crisis are already being felt in clinical practice, with rising admissions linked to extreme heat placing additional pressure on both ageing infrastructure and overstretched staff, while an RCP fellow and consultant physician in Surrey described how the recent heatwave has pushed care into increasingly risky situations, with patients being resuscitated in corridors following cardiac arrest. They emphasised that this reflects a serious deterioration in care standards, with high temperatures exacerbating already unsafe conditions and making corridor care even more dangerous.
Media reporting in The Times, The Telegraph and The Mirror has also brought into sharp focus the pressure on frontline staff, describing severe, unsustainable conditions as doctors continue to deliver care in extreme heat while already fatigued. By placing these realities into the public domain, the RCP has helped to build a clearer picture of the risks facing both patients and staff.
This reflects what many members are telling the college directly: that extreme heat is compounding existing workforce pressures and stretching services beyond safe limits. RCP clinical vice president Dr Hilary Williams said the experiences shared by these physicians should act as a clear warning to government. ‘The impact of heatwaves on staff cannot be overstated,’ she explained. ‘There is a sense of foreboding when we see the weather forecast, because we know what is to come, and there is very little staff can do.’
The RCP’s own data underscores the scale of the challenge. A 2025 survey of our members found that 58% of physicians feel their workplace is unprepared for extreme weather events, while 75% are concerned about the impact of climate change on their patients’ health.
The college is calling for urgent, system-level action to ensure the NHS is fit for a changing climate. RCP special adviser on health sustainability and climate change, Dr Mark Harber, has warned that heatwaves of this severity are likely to become more frequent as the climate continues to change, and that the NHS must be equipped to meet that reality. He emphasised that this requires system-wide reform, rather than a short-term focus on managing immediate pressures.
In the coming days, the RCP will contact MPs and peers, asking them to urge the government to build NHS resilience to extreme heat, including investment in infrastructure, workforce support and a coordinated plan to address the health impacts of climate change.
With extreme heat events expected to become more frequent and severe, the college will warn that without action, the NHS will face growing disruption to care and increasing risks to patient safety. For physicians on the front line, and for the patients they serve, the message is clear: the health service must be better prepared for the realities of a hotter future.