Tuesday was the hottest day of the year so far and yellow heat health alerts are in place for millions of people until Friday.

On 29 and 30 July, there were 21,112 visits to the heat exhaustion page, compared with 7,838 over the weekend (27 and 28 July) – a 169 per cent increase.

On Tuesday, there were 11,986 visits – an average of one visit every seven seconds.

Chief nursing officer for England Duncan Burton said: “We’ve seen a considerable increase in the number of people coming to the NHS website for heat-related health advice.

“The NHS website includes advice on how to stay cool, the symptoms of heat exhaustion, what to do if someone is affected and when to seek medical advice.

“People should continue to use 999 in life-threatening emergencies and NHS 111 – via the NHS App, online, or by phone – for other health concerns”.

The NHS website is the UK’s biggest health website with an estimated 2.1 million visits a day in 2023 from people seeking information and advice.