The Met Office has issued a Red Heat-Health Alert for the east of England region, with extremely hot temperatures anticipated in local areas from the weekend and early next week.
Urgent advice: Drive-through blood test service closed
Due to the high temperatures, our drive-through blood test service at Newmarket Road Park & Ride in Cambridge will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.
We will keep the situation under review on whether it will need to close for longer.
At Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals, we are taking the following steps to keep our patients safe during this heatwave.
Routine elective activity and outpatients
We are currently planning to operate our services and appointments as normal next week, except for our drive-through blood test service at Newmarket Road Park & Ride in Cambridge, which will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.
We are keeping this under constant review and we will update our website accordingly, and contact patients if anything changes.
If you are travelling to an appointment, please check the local conditions ahead of time and make sure you take water with you.
Staff and patient safety measures
We have activated our heatwave plan and are putting in place measures to look after patients and staff, including:
- Providing additional supplies of bottled water for urgent patient requirements.
- Water coolers are available throughout the Trust including in the Food Court.
- Portable air conditioning units are being deployed.
Visiting inpatients
If you are visiting a patient in our hospitals, please consider visiting at cooler times of the day, avoiding being out in the sun between 11am and 3pm, as per national guidance.
Advice for the public
It is important to stay out of the heat, cool yourself down, and keep your environment cool during these extremely hot temperatures.
Emergency services are likely to be extremely busy. Please only dial 999 if someone is in immediate need of emergency care. Please use 111 for urgent (not life threatening) health advice.
Read the Department of Health & Social Care’s advice on how to ‘beat the heat’ here – Beat the heat: staying safe in hot weather – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (opens in a new tab)