Nursing staff have repeatedly reported severe heat stress, including nausea, exhaustion and dizziness while carrying out critical patient care.

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said: ‘Hospitals across the country are breaching NHS maximum temperature limits - putting vulnerable patients at risk, making it harder for NHS staff to provide care and placing even more pressure on a health service that has been stretched to breaking point. It is incredibly and unbelievably dangerous.'

During July, average maximum ward temperatures soared to 31.9°C across reporting facilities, above the NHS safety threshold of 28°C.

Nearly half of the trusts (16) recorded extreme temperatures exceeding 33°C.

The Liberal Democrats called for a new NHS Rapid Adaptation Unit to urgently heatproof the most heat-affected hospitals and care homes, a legal requirement for all care homes to provide air conditioning to protect vulnerable residents during heatwave and for hospitals to be updated with modern cooling, ventilation and climate-resilient infrastructure, while retrofitting older NHS buildings, to withstand future heatwaves.