Changes made after heatwave critical incident

A hospital trust said it has made changes after patients faced cancelled appointments when soaring temperatures forced staff to switch off MRI scanners.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust declared a critical incident on Wednesday last week during a record-breaking heatwave.

Cooling systems that keep its scanners running were affected by the hot and humid weather and at least 362 outpatient appointments were cancelled as a result of the disruption.

Chris Cobb, chief operating officer at the Trust, said the critical incident has ended and steps were being taken to modify equipment to prevent future issues.

Cobb said: "We would like to apologise to everyone impacted by this incident. We recognise the distress this has caused and will endeavour to get everyone rebooked as soon as possible.

"If you have not been contacted by the hospital, please attend your appointment as usual.

"We have taken steps to modify the cooling systems within the MRI scanner environments and have introduced a process that will help ensure that there is no repetition of this type of incident, on this scale during future periods of extreme temperature and humidity."

The trust has four MRI scanners and it received a mobile MRI scanner on Thursday to ensure some appointments could still be carried out.

The machines generate a significant amount of heat when in use, so rely on cooling systems to keep them within safe operating temperatures.

Other hospitals also experienced problems during the heatwave.

The Norwich Spire Hospital took an MRI scanner offline because of a similar cooling issue, while Ipswich Hospital said one of its mobile units was temporarily out of action on Wednesday evening.

Provisional Met Office data showed the hottest June temperature ever recorded in the UK was at Lingwood, a village about eight miles east of Norwich, where temperatures reached 37.7C on Friday.

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