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With temperatures in the UK approaching record levels for June, people are being advised to avoid exercise and unnecessary travel. So how do you work in this heat?

We look at how various sectors of the economy are coping with unprecedented temperatures, and how working practices will have to adapt to increasingly frequent heatwaves that are predicted to be longer and more intense owing to the global climate emergency.

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Care homes

Not all care facilities are created equal

The aim for most care homes is to keep their highly vulnerable residents cool, hydrated and safe from heat stress. Older people are at heightened risk of illness or death in extreme heat. About 500,000 people live in residential care homes in the UK.

Responsible care homes would have been preparing for a heatwave since early March, said Nadra Ahmed, the chair of the National Care Association. “Their priority is protecting vulnerable residents.”

Care homes are expected to deploy fans and air conditioners, paddling pools and supplies of ice lollies and cold fruit. Designated cool rooms may be on offer, as well as increased monitoring of residents. Outdoor trips may be cancelled.

How successful those mitigation measures turn out to be may indicate how much has been learned from the shock of the 2022 heatwave, when temperatures in the UK exceeded 40C for the first time.

There were nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths in England, the vast majority among people aged over 65. Deaths in nursing homes rose 34%, and 13% in residential homes.

A review by the UK Health Security Agency research published two years later, blamed an ageing care estate ill equipped for extreme heat and, in many cases, reliant on inadequate cooling systems (this was less prevalent in private homes: “not all care facilities are created equal,” the report noted bluntly).

A Climate Change Committee report published last month concluded the UK care sector was underprepared for severe heat and there was “little evidence that climate action is taking place”. It proposed a target that by 2040, all care homes should be able to maintain indoor temperatures of between 16C and 26C.

This does not take into account the dangers of excessive heat for vulnerable people receiving social care living independently at home or in sheltered housing, where monitoring by domiciliary care staff may amount to a single, short daily visit.

Retrofitting homes originally designed to keep residents warm in winter to account for regular heatwaves would be challenging, said Ahmed, especially for a sector already struggling with rising demand, tight finances and staff shortages.

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Schools

I’m not sure how much longer we can keep dodging bullets

School leaders in the swathe of England and Wales affected by extreme temperatures are having to draft and redraft plans to keep their schools open, worrying about everything from keeping their catering staff cool to whether the buses will get children home.

About 300 schools in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire are closing on Wednesday and Thursday, while others are trying everything they can to stay open.

Walton high school in Stafford is on the fringe of the red warning zone, and has told pupils they can wear sports kit all week. But its main buildings date from the 1960s and lack air conditioning, said Jo Rowley, a deputy headteacher, and even deploying fans provided little relief.

The Department for Education’s position is that schools in England should remain open even in hot weather. Rowley said: “We’re making decisions on a day-to-day basis. The catering company uses our kitchen and we’ve had a meeting with them because it’s been very hot in there and won’t get any better as the week goes on. So that’s a pressure point: whether we can provide catering for the whole week.”

Keeping schools open is one thing, but the heat also interferes with the actual business of learning. “We are doing everything we can to remind students to stay out of the sun, to keep their water bottles filled up, so we are looking after them as their parents would look after them,” Rowley said.

“If the school is open it’s because the school is doing its best to educate children and care for them during that day.”

School leaders say it is lucky the heatwave arrived after the summer GCSE and A-level exam season, just as May’s heatwave coincided with most schools being closed for half-term.

“We’re dodging a few bullets, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep dodging,” said Rowley.

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Hospitals

The NHS estate is too dilapidated to deal well with heatwaves

Extreme heat is a major risk for healthcare in the UK because NHS infrastructure is generally ill equipped to deal with it. Air conditioning is not routinely installed and rooms often have poor ventilation. Many windows do not fully open owing to safety locks.

This week NHS trusts enacted their extreme weather plans and coordinated planning based on heat health alerts to ensure that services were ready to respond to increased demand and able to protect vulnerable patients.

Some trusts, such as University Hospital Southampton NHS foundation trust, warned that their emergency departments were extremely busy, with temperatures rising inside, and the public were urged to stay away if not facing an emergency.

NHS trusts have asked patients who must attend appointments or A&E not to bring large numbers of relatives or friends with them as every extra person increases the heat inside their buildings.

In the longer term, healthcare institutions are taking or planning action to mitigate the effects of human-made climate change.

In Birmingham, surgeons have trialled net zero carbon operations, which include not using anaesthetic gases owing to their strong greenhouse effect. In London, one NHS trust installed software that automatically turns off idle computers overnight, saving tonnes of carbon annually with no impact on security.

But solutions are also needed now. About 90% of England’s hospital buildings are vulnerable to overheating, according to the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.

“Very hot weather poses problems for patients, staff and the wider health service,” said Ciarán Devane, the chief executive of the NHS Alliance, which represents the health and care system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“Years of underinvestment means much of the NHS estate is too dilapidated, outdated or ill equipped to deal well with heatwaves, making it harder to ensure a safe, comfortable and smooth-running clinical environment.”

He said as extreme heat is expected to become more frequent urgent funding was needed to equip NHS estates for the future. “The government must continue to boost capital investment, and it should open up access to other sources of capital to support good care and improved productivity.”

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Restaurants and food merchants

There will be a significant increase in spoilage

When the heat rises in the kitchens of Hawksmoor, a small group of steak restaurants, there is little staff can do.

“There are walk-in fridges, there are wet flannels and tea towels kept in fridges,” said Will Beckett, the owner. “There are ice-creams. There are frozen bandanas.”

But ultimately, he said, there was just the heat and the need to adapt to it. “We’re here to serve steaks; we can’t start serving salads just because it’s painfully hot in the kitchens,” he said. “We serve steaks or we close. Those are the options.”

Restaurants, market traders and farmers were struggling to work out how to keep food fresh and staff functioning as temperatures rose, said Juliane Caillouette Noble, the chief executive of the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

“We’ve seen restaurants saying they’re going to close at 3pm this week,” she said. “Others are stripping back menus, but some can switch towards salads and cold dishes – others cannot.”

In the heat, fridges work harder. Energy bills rise. Equipment comes under strain. Sales become unpredictable. “When it’s this hot, people just don’t eat that much,” said Caillouette Noble.

The National Craft Butchers association said those selling meat and fish could ride out the temperatures and unpredictability because products were already kept under refrigeration. But in a different part of the food economy, there is no hiding place.

“For market traders, chocolate isn’t going to work in 40C,” said Joe Harrison, the chief executive of the National Market Traders Federation.

Then there are traders selling fruit, vegetables and flowers. “They don’t have refrigeration; there will be a significant increase in spoilage,” Harrison said.

Further back along the food chain, adjustments are also having to be made. Customers of Riverford, the organic fruit and vegetable delivery company, will be finding deliveries on their doorsteps before 6am this week.

In Hampshire, workers harvesting crops in polytunnels are starting at dawn because, said Zac Goodall, Riverford’s head of sustainability, by 8am some tunnels would already be too hot to work in.

But not everyone has the same scope to adapt. A restaurant group can spread its risk across several countries, but market traders, Harrison said, had fewer options. “People have been selling fruit and veg on markets since Adam was a lad,” he said. “But there are no alternative ways to the way they work: they just need to weather the sun.”

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Zoos

All our enclosures have shady spots

Zoos have a challenging job in a heatwave making sure that animals, visitors and staff are kept safe, healthy and happy.

Tactics used by keepers to help animals stay cool range from supplying big cats with ice lollies laced with blood to providing chilled cooling mats for mammals with heavy fur.

“Most of the animals are fine with a bit of heat,” said David Gibson, the chief executive of Dartmoor Zoo in Devon. “But, of course, the ones that can struggle are those that are adapted for cold climates.”

They include Dragan the Amur tiger, whose natural habitat is tundra and chilly forest. Dartmoor Zoo makes sure Dragan has access to shade and plenty of water, and provides him with “frozen enrichment” – iced lollies filled with treats.

Hannah Windross, the director of people and public engagement at Bristol Zoological Society, said it offered animals including red pandas chilled cooling mats to help lower their body temperatures.

“All our enclosures have shady spots that the animals can freely access to escape the sun,” she said. “Pools and misting systems are set up in various habitats so the animals can actively splash around and cool off. For example, we use a misting system in our tropical house.”

The charity thinks carefully about how to react to the climate emergency. An important part of its species plan is selecting animals that can be comfortable in the climate the UK has now and may face in years to come. For example, it stopped caring for penguins and began looking after cherry-crowned mangabeys.

Chris Wilkinson, the curator of Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in north Somerset, said it ensured its animals, from Aldabra tortoises to elephants, had access to cooling mud. It requires a lot of water and the zoo is considering digging a borehole. Before the hot weather, staff sheared the zoo’s sheep and alpacas to keep them cool.

Wilkinson said it had found that lions were partial to ice lollies laced with blood from a local abattoir. “That can be quite gory-looking but they really seem to like it.”

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Transport

Something needs to be done. It is dangerous

When Britain gets hot, for many transport workers it gets even hotter. In the record-breaking 2022 heatwave, steel rails were heating up towards 60C, according to Network Rail. The concrete and asphalt of Heathrow airport means it regularly tops the charts for the hottest place in the country.

The poorly insulated drivers’ cabs in trains and buses, previously more an issue on freezing winter days, are now proving equally problematic for staff in hot weather, and they are a potential safety hazard, unions say.

If passengers have sweated on buses with malfunctioning windows or a lack of air conditioning, many drivers believe they have it worse. According to Unite, heat is already affecting drivers’ health and wellbeing and significantly worsens the risk of fatigue.

It can lead to slower responses and diminished concentration, and coincides unhappily with another issue: the lack of toilet facilities, which leads many drivers to avoid drinking water on the job.

Many cabs are fitted with air cooling rather than air conditioning, and plenty of drivers claim both systems fail to work.

One bus driver, speaking anonymously, said: “I left my old route because of the diesel buses and the air con issues. I got on to a new route with new buses and the same thing is happening: it’s 50-50 whether I get a bus with air con working. It gets a bit much.”

Another said: “They think putting a little fan in the cab helps. Something needs to be done. Being in a cab where the temperature is hotter than outside without proper AC is outrageous.”

Unite has issued members with a letter to produce if they believe they should stop work on safety grounds because of extreme heat.

Aslef, the train drivers’ union, has called for a maximum working temperature, launching a campaign in 2022 after finding 85% of its members reported having felt too hot in the cab.

A small but significant minority admitted that the resulting trouble concentrating or dizziness had led them close to making potentially disastrous mistakes, such as passing a signal at danger.

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Construction

Heat kills. We need to take it seriously

Working on building sites during the current heatwave should be banned, according to an influential union.

Unite, which represents tens of thousands of construction workers, is calling for a maximum working temperature of 27C for strenuous jobs such as building work.

It said this should trigger employers to adopt measures including rescheduling work for cooler times of day, and providing shade and air-conditioned rest rooms. In extreme conditions when there were red alerts owing to a risk to life, work should be stopped altogether.

Jason Poulter, Unite’s national officer for construction, said: “When it gets to 35C-plus, people should be sent home. If you can’t take your dog out for a walk, you shouldn’t be expecting workers to go out either.”

Many builders carry on working however hot it gets. They include Emile (not his real name), who was decorating the judges’ quarters behind the high court in central London as the temperature passed 32C.

“No one has told us to take it easy over the next few days,” he said. “If anything we had to speed it up, because the job is going a bit slow.

“It’s not too bad at the moment because there’s no sun on this side of the building. But by mid-afternoon it gets a bit tropical.

“If you get too hot you can come down off the scaffold and cool down a bit. But there’s no adjustment for hot times of day – you start at 7.30am and you go at 4.30pm.”

Unite says construction workers are particularly vulnerable to the heat because the job often involves working outside in direct sunlight. Employers are legally obliged to assess the risk posed by heatwaves and take reasonable steps to minimise potential harm to staff.

Poulter said: “The problem is that on a lot of construction sites workers are on bogus self-employed contracts, so it’s a detriment to the worker financially to stop work, and if they go home they may be told not to bother turning up tomorrow.”

He added: “Heat kills. There’s a risk of skin cancer, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, so we need to take it seriously. Some people may think that’s snowflakey, but try lifting scaffolding tubes up and down ladders in these temperatures.”