The UK’s Health Security Agency confirmed a country-wide amber cold health warning will last until Tuesday, January 14, amid a warning that deaths could be ‘likely’
A rare amber cold health warning has been issued as the UKHSA warns deaths are “likely”.
The UK’s Health Security Agency confirmed there would be warnings in place until Tuesday, with its rare continuation of the amber ruling confirmed on the Government website. The warning, which was placed at 12pm on Thursday, January 9, will continue until 9am on Tuesday, January 14.
Weather during this forecast is likely to “cause significant impacts across health and social care services” and may see an increase in demand for health services or staffing issues across the country. The amber warning is in place for all of England.
Factors considered by the Health Security Agency included hospitals, care homes and clinics, as well as the possibility of a “rise in deaths”. They said there may be “a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or with health conditions. We may also see impacts on younger age groups.”
The service also confirmed a “likely increase in demand for health services,” “temperatures inside places like hospitals, care homes, and clinics dropping below the levels recommended for assessing health risks,” and “challenges keeping indoor temperatures at the recommended 18C”.
The UK is facing its coldest January in 15 years after reports of -18.7C were recorded in Altnaharra, Scotland. Temperatures in England were said to have dropped to -11C in Cumbria and -5C in Heathrow on Friday (January 10).
According to the UKHSA, the weather health alerting system is intended to provide early warning to the health and social care sector, the responder community, the voluntary and community sector and government departments when adverse temperatures are likely to impact on the health and wellbeing of the population.
The health alerting system is made up of the Heat-Health Alerts (HHA) and Cold-Health Alerts (CHA). Although temperatures are expected to recover next week, they have dropped below freezing across the country over the weekend.
Met Office meteorologist Zoe Hutin said: “We’re saying it’s getting milder but by no stretch does that mean (temperatures) are going to be above average, it just will feel comparatively much more pleasant than it is at the moment.
“It has been getting progressively colder each night this week, whereas looking at previous years, we’ve had maybe two or three days where things have been particularly cold.”
Parts of the country could be set for even further snow this month, with Leeds, Wakefield, York, Bradford, and Ripon all said to have 2cm per hour from midday on January 24, according to WXCharts.
Parts of Scotland can also expect snow later this month, with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Stirling all tipped to experience further snowfall.