First week of August. From 9am on Monday until 9am this morning, London and Essex were under an amber heat health alert. Most people noticed it as a hot few days. For anyone caring for an older relative, it was something else.
Heat is the quiet risk. A cold snap announces itself. Nobody underestimates ice. But a warm spell reads as pleasant right up until the point it stops being pleasant, and the people most affected by it are often the last to say anything.
That is the part families ask us about most. Not the weather. Whether anyone is actually watching.
Why heat is a homecare problem, not a weather story
The UK Health Security Agency is direct about who a heat health alert is for. An amber alert means significant impacts are likely across health and social care services, including a rise in deaths, particularly among people aged 65 and over or living with existing health conditions. It is issued for the health and care system, not for the general public. That is worth sitting with for a moment. The alert exists because services like ours need to change what we do.
The reasons are ordinary rather than dramatic. Older flats and terraces hold heat overnight and never fully cool down. Thirst is a less reliable signal as we age, so someone can be well behind on fluids and feel completely fine. A ground-floor window that would help is the same window somebody does not want to leave open. And a person living alone has nobody to notice that they have been in the same chair since breakfast.
None of that is visible from outside the house. It is visible on a visit.
What actually changes in a Soma visit
When an alert is in force, our coordinators work through the visit schedule before the heat arrives rather than after.
Visit timing moves. Where a call can be shifted out of the middle of the day, it is. Personal care, anything physically demanding, and any trip outside get pulled towards the morning or the evening.
Fluids become a task, not a courtesy. A drink is left within reach at the end of every visit, in a cup the person can actually lift, and the next carer checks whether it went down. That last part is the one that matters. A full glass on the side tells you more than an empty one.
The home gets read as well as the person. Which rooms have held the heat. Whether curtains are doing anything. Whether the fan is pointed somewhere useful. Whether medicines are sitting somewhere that has been at 28 degrees for three days.
Fridges and food get a second look. Shopping bought in a heatwave and put away by someone who is tired does not always end up where it should.
Families hear from us sooner. If something looks off, we would rather call you about nothing than not call you about something.
Nobody is left without a route through. Our line is answered around the clock, and during an alert that matters more than usual, because the worry rarely arrives during office hours.
What the alert levels actually mean
The alerts are issued by the UK Health Security Agency with the Met Office, by region, and they are published openly.
- Yellow – the risk is mainly to people who are already vulnerable. Health and care services are asked to prepare.
- Amber – significant impacts are likely across health and social care. Increased demand on services, and increased risk to people over 65 or living with existing conditions.
- Red – risk extends to the healthy population, not only vulnerable groups.
You can check the current level for your region on the UKHSA weather health alerts dashboard. It costs nothing and takes ten seconds, and it is a better trigger for picking up the phone to a relative than waiting until the news mentions a heatwave.
Between visits
If you want to do something practical for a relative this summer, the NHS guidance on coping in hot weather is short and worth reading in full rather than in summary. The headline points are staying out of the sun between 11am and 3pm, keeping the home cool, and staying on top of fluids.
We would add one thing that is not in the guidance. Ring at a different time than you usually do. People manage their voice for the daily call. They manage it less well when the call is unexpected.
If you are worried about someone’s health, contact NHS 111, or 999 in an emergency.
This summer is not over
Green today does not mean green in a fortnight. The Met Office expects above-average temperatures through August with a chance of further hot spells, and this year has already produced more days above 30 degrees than 1976 did.
If you are arranging care for a relative in London or Essex and want to know how we handle it, call us on 07414 146 466 or email info@somahealthcare.co.uk.