Yellow heat health alert issued for Yorkshire: How long the alert will be in place for with temperatures set to rise this week
A yellow heat health alert is currently active in Yorkshire.
The alert, issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), will be effective until 6pm, August 13 (Wednesday).
The yellow alert for Yorkshire and the Humber has a medium impact, low likelihood, and a risk score of 10.
In Wakefield, the Met Office predicts temperatures will reach 27 degrees on Tuesday (today), and 33 degrees on Wednesday.
In Dewsbury, temperatures are expected to reach 27 degrees on Tuesday (today) and peak at 32 degrees on Wednesday.
The UKHSA said high temperatures could cause significant impacts across the health and social care services.
It said these impacts could include: a rise in deaths, particularly in people who are 65 years old or over, who have health conditions, or people in younger age groups; increased demand for health services; hospital and care home temperatures exceeding the recommended threshold for clinical risk assessment; temperatures affecting the ability of the workforce; indoor environments overheating increasing the risk to vulnerable people living independently in community and care settings.
The alerting system is intended to provide an 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 UKHSA provides the heat health alerting system in partnership with the Met Office.
Its heat health alerting season runs from June 1 to September 30, although an “extraordinary alert” would be issued if an episode of heat occurred outside this “core period.”