Nurses are collapsing during shifts as extreme heat turns hospitals and care homes into dangerous workplaces. The Royal College of Nursing has described conditions as “inhumane and impossible”, while the government continues to postpone the “bigger questions” of climate adaptation and renewed North Sea drilling.
An amber heat warning will cover large parts of England from Thursday morning, with temperatures forecast to reach 36C or higher. Three-quarters of England is officially in drought, rail operators are warning passengers to avoid non-essential journeys, and firefighters are battling a blaze in the New Forest. Parts of eastern and southern Scotland face a very high risk of wildfires.
The number of days above 30C has already reached a record 35 this year. This isn’t an isolated spell of warm weather. It’s a climate crisis colliding with public infrastructure weakened by years of austerity, privatisation and deliberate neglect.
The immediate burden is falling on workers.
The RCN says nurses have collapsed, become dizzy and nauseous, and faced the risk of fainting while sweating “from head to toe”. At the same time, they’re expected to protect elderly and vulnerable patients and prevent medicines from overheating.
One 37-year-old nurse working in a critical care unit in south-west England said temperatures on the ward had risen above 30C.
“Our ward doesn’t have air conditioning, and so we’re all really struggling. We’ve had hot summers before, but I can’t remember ever working in conditions like these back to back,” she said.
Another nurse, working in a community health centre, said: “It gets to the point you dread going to work, especially when wearing PPE and providing patient care. We drip with sweat from head to toe.”
These conditions expose the class character of the crisis. Nurses and other health workers are treated as an endlessly exploitable resource. Their labour keeps the health service functioning, but their own safety is regarded as an avoidable cost. The capitalist state praises their dedication precisely because praise is cheaper than providing safe buildings, adequate staffing and proper equipment.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary and chief executive, called the testimonies a “wake-up call”. The union is demanding an urgent programme of air conditioning, improved ventilation and heat-appropriate uniforms.
Firefighters face the same contradiction. On Monday, the Fire Brigades Union warned that crews need new equipment and resources to confront the growing danger created by a rapidly changing climate. Once again, workers are sent to contain a crisis while the institutions responsible for preparing society are starved of capacity.
A freedom of information request found that only 20 staff are working on climate adaptation in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The government’s own climate change adaptation committee has warned that Britain is falling far behind.
This isn’t simply administrative incompetence. Under capitalism, public preparation is continually sacrificed to the short-term demands of profit and accumulation. Hospitals, schools, railways and reservoirs appear on government balance sheets as expenses. Fossil-fuel extraction, private energy projects and opportunities for monopoly capital are treated as economic necessities.
Andy Burnham, speaking after a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee, said his immediate priority was bringing serious incidents under control.
“It is really important that we deal today with the situation that we are in right now and we focus on making sure that we have the serious incidents under control across the country, and those incidents are under control,” he said.
“The bigger questions obviously will come at the right moment in time,” he added.
But the “right moment” for the ruling class is always later. Climate adaptation can be postponed because those making the decisions aren’t the ones fainting on hospital wards, fighting wildfires or living in overheated care homes.
Burnham also refused to say whether the summer’s extreme conditions strengthened the case against renewed drilling in the North Sea, which the government is considering. That hesitation points to the power of fossil-fuel capital and the wider interests of British imperialism. Control over energy supplies, extraction and investment remains central to the power of monopoly capital. Workers are told to endure the heat while new sources of profit remain under consideration.
The contradiction is plain: the damage is socialised, while control and profit remain private. The public absorbs the consequences through illness, disrupted transport, burning countryside and collapsing services. Energy companies and investors keep their command over production.
Burnham raised the possibility of banning disposable barbecues and later urged retailers to withdraw them from sale. Such measures may reduce an immediate fire risk, but the emphasis is revealing. The state finds it easier to regulate an individual consumer product than to confront the ownership and investment decisions driving fossil-fuel extraction.
Labour MP Chris Hinchliff said the summer “has to be a real wake-up call for Westminster”. He argued that Britain was built for a climate that no longer exists and that extreme heat is placing enormous pressure on railways, schools, hospitals and living standards.
“It is indisputable that up to now we haven’t treated these issues with the importance that they deserve, and the proof is what we are experiencing,” he said.
Other Labour MPs privately complained that adaptation has remained the “poor relation” of government policy. One contrasted the state’s ability to approve energy projects with its failure to build reservoirs. Another complained that Burnham hadn’t produced enough social-media videos about the climate crisis.
One MP went further, treating the disaster as an electoral branding opportunity: “Let Nigel Farage be on the side of the wildfires – he can be the pro-wildfire politician, and Andy can be the anti-wildfire prime minister. This is an opportunity for him to seize.”
Here the poverty of parliamentary politics is laid bare. Nurses are collapsing and firefighters are demanding equipment, but Westminster reduces the crisis to messaging, personalities and political advantage. The issue isn’t whether Burnham produces enough videos or finds a sharper slogan. It’s that the capitalist state remains bound to the interests of the class that owns and controls the economy.
Health and social care secretary Yvette Cooper praised NHS and care staff and said the health service must begin planning for summer pressures as it already plans for winter pressures. But workers have heard plenty of praise while staffing, buildings and working conditions deteriorate.
Climate breakdown is intensifying every existing class division. Those with wealth can buy cooling, move elsewhere or work in comfort. Those without it must labour in overheated wards, travel on failing railways and depend on public services that were never given the resources to adapt.
The heat has stripped away the polite language of “resilience” and “preparedness”. What remains is a familiar capitalist reality: workers are expected to keep society alive under increasingly dangerous conditions, while the ruling class delays anything that threatens property, profit or imperial power.
