NHS England has revealed that over the last week, visits to the heat exhaustion section of the NHS website more than tripled.

Visits averaged one every six seconds.

There were 109,096 visits to the health advice page on heat exhaustion and heatstroke from 9 to 15 June, compared with 34,066 the previous week (2 to 8 June).

As well as this, the number of people seeking heat rash or prickly heat advice has almost doubled, from 34,478 to 67,132 page visits during the same time period.

Duncan Burton, NHS England’s deputy chief nursing officer, said: “We know there is a high risk of heat exhaustion or heatstroke during hot weather especially among children, older people and those with long-term conditions like diabetes or heart problems.

“The NHS website has a range of useful information pages aimed at helping people keep themselves and their loved ones safe during hot weather.

“Keeping the body cool and drinking plenty of fluids is vitally important, as well as dressing sensibly, using high-factor sun screen and limiting the amount of time you spend in the sun to avoid the risk of sunburn and to prevent skin cancer.

“With heat exhaustion, it is important to cool the person down, hydrate them and see if their condition improves after 30 minutes. If it doesn’t, we would always advise seeking medical attention by calling 111 or 999 in an emergency.”

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay